So I have been reading on here and watching a lot of YouTube while waiting for my pro xxl to be delivered. This is normally a very dangerous thing for my wallet. So I am thinking that it might make things a little easier for tramming if I make a mdf waste board with threaded inserts and use the included t nits to attach it with my t-track. I know I don’t have to but I thought it might be easier to be able to surface without leaving a depression in the waste board and make it easy to replace especially while I am new and prone to screw something up. I know I will lose 3/4 inch of z height but I plan on almost exclusively doing sheet goods at first. I am posting here to get other opinions and do a general idiot check that I doings something dumb. Thanks in advance.
I’d wait till you get the machine. I’ve been a big fan of threaded wasteboards in the past since moving to the hybrid table I’ve really been digging the T slots.
I’m not saying I won’t eventually thread a few inserts but right now I haven’t had a need to.
I have to agree, I had a threaded wasteboard on my XXL and when I changed to T-track I found it far more flexible and useful.
I think it does depend a lot on what type of jobs you’re doing, but I find the T-track works for 90% of jobs, the rest I am using blue tape and glue or screws into the wasteboard
Note that it shouldn’t be necessary to lose any vertical area — either add filler strips over where the T-tracks are, or replace the MDF filler strips w/ wider ones which are T-shaped to cover them over, or give up a bit of thickness and machine a board which has grooves to match the tracks (you could even use them for installation).
That said, so long as the T-track spacing is not much more than two clamps wide one can usually make it work.
Personally I am not a fan of T-Track but everyone works differently. Attached is a doc I made about spoil board considerations. It was written for the Shapeoko 3 but applies directly to the pro if you want to make a threaded spoil board and just take it off when you want to use the T-Track type. Some people put threaded holes in the t-track type as well and get the benefit of both.
spoilboard_considerations.pdf (1.3 MB)