So I am just about ready to start cutting panels and getting the base made. While looking at the base structure I was wondering what people were doing for work holding. I am tempted to mount and aluminum top plate with T-Slots milled out and or multiple small aluminum plates stacked and offset so that I would just have to cut rectangles out of the aluminum and save having to take the time to do the milling. I don't want to screw up the wooden / MDF base by screwing work pieces into it. No pun intended. Does anyone else have any ideas? For the people who have successfully completed the build what do you use?
On another topic, for the MDF base, have people been doing the interlocking design or just the single set of horizontal braces? If you are doing the interlocking design how are you cutting the slots? A dado blade or router perhaps? I was tempted to try and do it on an existing CNC router, bu then we run into the issues with squaring off the interior cuts, and or doing an initial pass with a larger end mill and a finishing pass with a very small diameter end mill. I have seen some end mills with a diameter of less than 1mm, which would leave very little MDF to sand out to square up the slots. I am a little worried about breaking multiple bits though and they are quite expensive. Due to where I build I can't really use dado blades, so I'm not sure how else this would be accomplished. Are the interlocking panels really necessary? What about forgoing them all together and just stacking and gluing multiple MDF panels (5 1/2 panels) to make the requisite 2.5in height? Any concerns there besides the weight? I also though about making the cross braces non interlocking, which would mean many small parts, and trying to square them, drill them a dowel them. It doesn't seem like the best idea. So what's your take?
