Originally Posted by
multivactubes
Thanks for your comments. I primarily want to be able to machine plastic, wood, and aluminum and hold around a 1 thou tolerance. I think you may be on to something with the idea that there should be some provision for the dissimilar materials to slide past each other. One Idea I have is to use belleville disc springs between the cast aluminum table and the bolt heads that hold the table to the carriages on one side only. I could set the torque on the bolts to produce around 50-100 lbs of spring force per bolt. The idea would be that when the aluminum expands more than the granite the disc springs allow the aluminum plate the slip the 1.5 thou or so needed so that the rails don't bind. It would take 500 pounds of so of force to make the table slip on the carriages so the machine should still be rigid when cutting.
Another possible problem is that for the Z axis of the machine I had planned on mounting linear rails directly to another 1" thick cast aluminum plate 15 inches long. I wonder if this bimetallic strip will bend excessively with temperature changes?