Making a spoilboard - The do's and dont's

Great video. I have the MK2, actually it's classified as MK2.5 now that I've added the Super Longboard and the new anti-backlash nuts. I'm excited to be receiving my water-cooled 80mm spindle tomorrow from PWNCNC. I also have the 4th axis device from Sienci. I've been contemplating how to go on my spoilboard after watching a multitude of YouTube videos on the subject. There are a few additional/different things that I plan to do. I want to place the T-tracks 90º (horizontally) from everyone else's location. The reason being, I can remove one of the slats and replace it with the mounted 4th axis device when necessary. I also plan on cutting dados into each board as a hold-down for the T-tracks. The screws holding the T-track down can easily be pulled out or the track can flex if not held down by other means when applying a lot of pressure. Additionally, I'm thinking of cutting dog holes and t-nuts (not threaded inserts that can pull out). Any additional ideas?

Just got a 3018 Pro for my birthday the other day, and just finished cutting out one of the test files.. Been watching your vids for a while now and am pretty happy with the results and your vids have helped soooo much to get mine all tuned in... Going to get some MDF tomorrow to make my own spoil board for when my surfacing bit comes :)

If you use, say a 1" diameter surfacing bit, the area that it surfaces would actually be 1/2" (or 1/2 the diameter of the bit cutting area) outside the dimensions that you marked when you found your machine limits. Your spoilboard could be 1/4" or 3/8" outside of your machine limits (to account for any out of square cutting or installing crooked of your spoilboard) and that area would still be surfaced and not be a "pocket". Then when you put grid reference lines on the spoilboard they would also show the actual machine cutting limits. Maybe just being "nit-pickey". LOL. Another good informative video BTW.

WOW, you have a new workshop, looks nice.

Nice video, but one possible mistake I noticed with your setup is the wooden bench that the whole CNC is mounted on. Wood is very sensitive to humidity and its temperature sensitivity is different to that of the metal frame of your CNC. This means that on hot/cold or humid/dry days the whole setup will buckle, making the spoilboard surfacing job useless. Although inconvenient to do after the fact, I would most definitely transfer the whole thing to a metal frame.

Great video! Thank you!

Looking forward to more videos using the MK2.

I just finished my T-track spoilboard. I used an aluminum base this time. Took time to drill and tap the holes, but it’s really sturdy. Sharing your video on my page.

Hello, I was watching this and noticed your mounts you have for your rails. Are those something that can be bought ? Or made? Thanks

i got something strange happening. i use vcarve and gsender. I load the file into gsender and zero to the corner of the wood i am gone use. When i start the job, it seems like it go about 10mm ( Y ) up and 10mm ( X) to the right then it starts carving. Why do it do this? I have looked in the settings of gsender and i can not find anything about it

In my opinion this is a wrong way to tram the spindle and surface the spoilboard. The right sequence is to tram the spindle and after that to surface the spoilboard. And to tram the spindle you need a surface reference. Something like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzFPadoZH5Q&t=680s. Of course you can use your jig like it is or with a dial indicator.