Hi There I am up to replacing my spoil board on my SO3.I have the current board set 50mm square with T nuts.While this has worked OK there have been occasions when the clamps have not meet the stock requiring a packer just wondering if anyone has a clever idea.The other option could be a combination of track and T nuts
I have an SO3 XXL. My last couple of spoilboards I have made so I can surface the whole thing. That means making it smaller than the full cutting area. If you go all the way to the back when surfacing you get a ridge that makes a cliff making pass through uneven. I use a 2" spacing for my Tee Nuts 1/4-20 and use ones that are about 1/4" lower than the surface so I can flatten my spoilboard quite a few times. Additionally on any through cuts I use bottom of material in CC and that keeps my spoilboard almost pristine. I use cam clamps to hold my projects or painters tape and super glue. I use TiteBond Medium CA glue and it works flawlessly.
Making my spoilboard large enough so I can flatten the whole thing has worked well. Plus using the bottom of material means a lot less flattening because I dont scar up my spoilboard.
Another thing I did was remove my leveling feet and put my SO3 on a piece of 3/4" rigid foam board. That eliminated the sag that SO3 XXL machines get due to no support in the center suppoort on the SO3. Additionally I built a torsion box to put on top of my table, the rigid foam and it works quite well keeping my spoilboard flat.
I use mdf but others have used delrin and other materials. The mdf gives me grip over slicker spoilboard materials. The cost of an alumiumn plate is cost prohibitive for me plus you can still cut through a project and scar up the expensive alumnium spoilboard. I had the t-tracks for a while but got rid of them and went with the 2" spacing tee nuts.
Thanks Guy,the cam locks would solve the issue.I am slowly chipping into the board when I use the painters tape and glue always get some leakage onto the board requiring at best chipping it off.Maybe it’s my technique.
To add to what Guy said, I move my Z-zero up by 0.010” (after zeroing) with tape and CA glue holding method.
This puts the bit closer to the material bottom and avoids cutting into both the tape and spoil board.
My recommendation is a two or three-layer approach — you need:
- a baseplate as the bottom layer — it can have workholding in it using T-nuts installed from below if desired — at a minimum it should have some hardware for installing the layer(s) above and it should be finished so as to mitigate moisture
- (optional) a layer with workholding — this can be either an MDF sheet with additional T-nuts, or a series of aluminum T-tracks
- a spoilboard layer — best practice is to make this the size of the (cuttable) working area supported by the machine plus surfacing tool radius at the sides and to the back (with rounded corners at the back)
Otherwise, you end up with a pocket for a working area which can be a pain, and increases the possibility of running a tool into the front lip.
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It cost me around $750 if I recall, but I had Misumi extrusions that replaced the MDF on my SO3. Worked awesome and is still going strong for my friend who has the machine. I then bolted a MDF surface to it and leveled that.
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