The next step I took on was laying out the aluminum extrusions to build the primary structure for the machine. I purchased carriage bolts to assemble the extrusions using corner gussets at Tacoma Screw and soon realized I had an issue. The square neck extended too far from the extrusion keeping the corner gussets (or anything else I tried to assemble) from pulling in tight with the extrusions. I looked through the CNCzone forums but didn’t see this exact problem, but surely others have run into this? Perhaps I wasn’t using the correct combination of search terms. Anyway, I contacted Ahren at CNCrouterparts and purchased some bolts through him. His bolts were better but not perfect (still extended a bit). I fixed the problem by finding some 3/8” washers at a local DIY Hardware store which fit around the sure neck but still small enough to fit into the extrusion with the bolt (see pictures below).


bolts from Tacoma Screw


washer solution