What shall I do? Wasteboard question

[NewToThis (Peter)]

So, I’ve designed my 32" waste board and bought 36" T-tracks, as the shorter ones were, well, too short!

I’m going to run them from front to back and there are loads of threaded holes in the board too, but the questions I’d like an answers to are:

1. Should I cut the extra 4" off and use those to ‘start’ the next T-track so I have an 8" piece left over, rather than 4x 2" pieces?

Or

2. Should I extend the board so it overhangs the front (it’s high enough) by 2" and just cut off and bin the off-cuts?

Or

3. Should I just stop asking stupid questions

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

1. I like the simplicity and appearance of full length parts.

2. I believe you could use the off-cuts for fixtures and so forth — screw them to the underside and they could then align/register the fixture on your T-track.

3. The only stupid question is the one which goes unasked. Please, keep asking — anyone who thinks a question is stupid should be polite and mature enough to ignore it in favour of someone actually answering.

[LiamN (Liam Newcombe)]

Yep, like Will says;

Joining the T tracks will just be irritating and possibly make T Nuts hard to slide along them, the offcuts of T track will come in useful for something soon enough, like a jig.

I’d probably stop at the front rail of the machine as the overhang won’t be well supported.