On 2010-07-26, DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2010-07-25, Ignoramus8473 wrote:
On 2010-07-25, DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2010-07-24, Ignoramus8473 wrote:
I wanted to make a guard around the milling table, so that chips and
coolant would not be strewn all over the shop.

I want to make something like what I saw on the web:

http://machineability.com/Bridgeport_series_II.html

My first question is what material to use? Acrylic? Lexan?

*Thick* Lexan -- not Plexiglass, because that is too brittle.
If you have something heavier than a chip (e.g. a broken HSS or carbide
mill half), you want something more likely to keep it away from you.

1/4 inch?

1/4" or perhaps 5/16" for the size of mill you are using. For
some machines, you would want something 1" thick or so -- like what is
used to bulletproof the tellers at some banks. :-)

How high do you think it should go above the cutting point? I mean, I
am sure that the higher, the better, but at some point the height will
interfere with the ram and table movement. So if I could get some idea
like "4 inches above the point of cutting" it would be nice. Just want
to find a way to think properly about that.

When I was first learning CNC, I fast moved a workpiece though a
solid carbide end mill -- and spent the next eternity ducking it
bouncing off hard plaster walls. :-)

Yea, that's fun, I had this experience at 15 when I crashed a lathe
carriage into the chuck. The lathe was 10 kW, like this one:

http://uaprom-image.s3.amazonaws.com...0_dsc07722.jpg

Looks like a nice machine.

Must have felt really bad at 15 to crash that.

It still feels bad.

i