I have been looking through the forums, and website for the maximum work area on 4x8 sheet of plywood. I am working on small project in onshape and I am trying to figure out how many parts I can place on a sheet of plywood thus I need to know how close to the edge will the router be able to cut. I understand the farther you get from the center that errors may happen, but in a way that will be ok for this project.
The sled is 18 inches. The project is open so your rig can be any size the can hand the ~40lbs sled limit. I would say if your build is 4x8 - a 12 inch margin on the out side is safe. I’m sure you can go beyond but the sled is going to tilt and possible have issues. I plan to build a rig with an extra 9 inch skirt so the router can fully exit and enter a 4x8 sheet on all sides(i’ll put metric her later to be fair to my non US peeps). You are not limited by the project design but your own. Its limits are what you built to and your pocket book.
Thank you
Thank you, was thinking that a skirt my help out to utilize the whole 4x8 sheet. But haven’t seen it done.
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You’er welcome. I’ve seen it everywhere but the bottom. It takes up more room my way. It’s messy too as I won’t have a shelf at the bottom. I will have a standoff to hold the work while I mount it in a negative space with screws and wooden dowels. It’s simply more work for more space. But will allow me to use it the way I envision.
Thank you
the problem is that the sled may not be stable as it gets less support.
it doesn’t need the full 9" radius of the sled, but we don’t have good testing
to see how close you can get to the edge
I don’t worry about the top edge at all, the sled is bottom heavy, so I expect
that you can go past the top without a problem
On the bottom, the bottom beam can act as support (although you need to watch
out for cutting it and if your workpiece + wasteboard is too thick you will
loose support)
On the sides, it’s a very interesting question, you have the chains keeping
things straight so exactly how close you can get to the edge is a unknown, I
expect that even with a couple of inches you will be ok.
And if you provide spacers outside the workpiece for the sled to ride on, you
will have no problems.
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I am hoping to get my skirt attached by this weekend. I will post pictures once I do, but for now you can check out how I set up my frame, and see the extra 2x4 portions that extend beyond the cutting surface which will support the skirt here. I am planning a 6 inch skirt all the way around since I have the space, but I think as little as 2-3 inches would be plenty since the horizontal center of balance of the sled should be at the bit. Vertically, it will depend on how your weight is distributed, as @dlang mentioned, the sled is usually bottom heavy, so a wider skirt at the bottom may be needed.
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