I now have enough parts to start on the frame.
Short work was made of cutting the lengths of studding by using the chop saw attachment for my angle grinder, worth every penny of whatever I paid for it at Aldi.
Having chopped the six 1m lengths according to the cutting regimen, I then proceeded to drill the various holes in the cast parts using my pillar drill (something that has paid for itself several times over, mine was from Wickes, current price is £65.00, pretty sure I paid no more than £45.00)
All was going very smoothly, indentations in the parts to start the drill in the right spot, until I put too much pressure on one of the Z axis motor mounts:
Still, all is not lost, after the application of some superglue to re-attach the broken pieces, I was able to finish drilling this piece, and unless you look very close, you cannot even see the join.
Having finished with the drilling, I started putting the frame together, the two sides were completed in hardly any time:
When I came to put the top bars on I discovered an issue with the parts: The hole drilling locations on the parts do not all actually line up! The Z axis motor mounts are supposed to slide on to the top bars, however the holes drilled in the top frame piece are too close together to allow this.
So off came the top bars, and top frame piece and the holes were suitably “adjusted” on the drill so that they were the right distance apart.
I had to leave out a couple of nuts and washers next to the Y axis motor mount, as the shafts on my motors are a bit on the short side.
I measured all of the vertices and all seem to be the correct lengths, however the frame will still not sit level. This is again probably an issue with slight differences in hole locations and differences in thickness of the various parts. I will worry about this some more when I have the smooth rails and I am ensuring that axes will travel smoothly.