something I learned today don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I have been beating my head against the wall couldn’t figure out why sometimes my carving came out okay and other times it was just terrible. So I flatten my wasteboard and still was having issues so I removed my wasteboard and what I found was something I had never thought about. My problem or at least part of it was the screws I was using to hold down my clamps. They were to long. When I would tighten them up to secure the clamps they were going through the tee nuts into the original wasteboard and pushing the top wasteboard up. Causing it not to be flat in different areas.
So just something to think about if you are h ing the same problem. So now another thing to remember when you flatten your wasteboard remember it gets thinner and the screw don’t need to be as long.
On a slightly different note. When I was checking the spindle for squareness I was amazed at how little pressure could affect the center of the wasteboard. So I am going to insert T-Nuts on the top side of my work bench and then insert bolts from the bottom side that will go up and make contact with the 3 metal support plates. The bolts will have rubber caps on them and I will screw them up just so they touch and keep the middle from ever flexing downward. I will post pics when I am done.
1 is great IF you end up nice and level. if not you’re kind of stuck
so your idea is certainly attractive albeit a bit more complicated than just a 3/4" slab of plywood/whatever (which at orange or blue stores might well not be flat enough)
For 1, lots of folks just do a sheet of foam (I cheaped out and used two sections of an anti-fatigue mat from Harbor Freight) — doesn’t == “support it well”, but allows the machine to just be flat w/o undue distortion from a limited number of pressure points such as the leveling feet/PEM nuts.
I like the energy absorbing mat idea. I might look for a couple.
Would seem like using foam would cause the center to ride high, what with the beam and assemblies weight resting out at the sides. ?
In practice the sharp parts push the foam down, while the flatter areas are supported — at least that’s what seems to happen — more importantly for me it reduces vibrations and keeps the tablet from acting as a resonating board, so helps reduce at least some noise.
I recently added the 1" foam board underneath as many on the FB group have mentioned. Seems to work great. Haven’t noticed any increase in vibration or noise and all the screws are sunk into it. Recommend it to anyone on the fence of adding this.
I did the same as @WillAdams with the HF anti-fatigue mat, except where there were gaps I shimmed under the sheet steel with shims cut from MDF. The stock four corner feet with the addition of the two piece waste board seemed to sag a bunch. I’m guessing simply removing the feet and adding a supplementary waste board would cure most of it, but I like to think of overbuilding as a feature rather than a defect, haha!!
I used a sheet of 1in rigid foam insulation under my XL but I cut it in two so that the pieces sat between the frame members and directly supported wasteboard. The frame with the bolts protruding made it uneven. Ideally, I think that the XL and XXL should have more adjustable feet that would help support the middle and increase rigidity.
Did not remove the feet, the 1in fitted perfectly. If I had used the same thickness under the frame, the feet would not have touched, this is one of the reasons I cut the foam. I used polyisocyanurate foam because I had a piece leftover from recent renovations but regular pink or sometimes blue closed cell insulation foam would also work provided you get the right thickness.
I did like a lot of you have. I removed the feet and added a sheet of anti fatigue foam from harbor freight. Seems to of helped a lot. Another reason why I like this forum always helpful
Just in case some other new person comes along a year from now and reads this thread, I wanted to add that my idea of adding screw supports from the bottom was terrible. I scrapped it, removed the feet, and went with 1" pink foam under each of the three support pieces (5.5" wide by what ever length) After doing this I put down a 1/2" MDF over the stock wasteboard, surfaced it several times, then put down my 30x30 3/4" MDF, drilled holes and surfaced it. Now I am very happy with my levelness. Sometimes when the path has been paved before you it is smart to take it
