Panel Saw

[Charley Davidson]

A few months ago I bought a Bad Doghttp://www.baddogtools.com/ nibbler at a garage sale for $40.00 it worked great but needed help when trying to cut a straight line so I came up with a plan to mount it on a panel saw type setup.

Today I found this for $10 while out junking.
penel saw parts.jpg
It has 4 sliding pillar blocks and one has a clamp on it to lock the assembly in place. all I need to do to is cut an aluminum plate to hold the nibbler and a circular saw. The 3/4 inch solid rods need to be replaced with longer ones as they are only 42" long I need them to be about 60" to be able to cut a full 4ft sheet.

The nibbler can cross cut and rip without having to make any changes to anything as it was retrofitted with a new head on one side that spins so you can change directions without turning the tool.

I'm building the frame out of angle iron unless you guys think it needs something stronger. I'll make it 8ft long with vertical members every 2ft then use some 3/4 x 2or3 inch wide by 8ft strips of UHMW I just bought at a garage sale (got 2 sheets 3/4 24x96)
horizontally

The guy I got the rack off of has some rollers that will be perfect for it too.

In some ways this will be better than a shear. It will take up less floor space, cut full 4ft wide for far less , cut a small square out of a full sheet without having any wasted drop and cut an indefinite length.
All advice/comments welcome
0517102151.jpg

[cwilliamrose]

The frame will probably be OK with angle iron if it isn't expected to be self-supporting. If you have it attached to a wall or braced to in some way it will work. Those are nice linear bearings you found. Please keep us posted on your progress.

[Charley Davidson]

Thanks Bill, I'm gonna mount it so it sits on the floor about 6" to 12" away from the wall then the top leaned back against the wall, this way gravity does most of the keeping material in place. I didn't put them in my drawing but I will also do an X brace to square it up and keep it from racking unless 4 corner gussets would do the job.

notice the sprocket at the top? This will be used with a chain that has a weight on one end and connected to the base plate on the other to let the tool retrieve itself to the top and also stay there out of the way. This thing just screams "make me into a panel saw".

[cwilliamrose]

I'd favor a single cross brace -- corner-to-corner. Once it's attached to the floor and wall, it won't go anywhere. It's only when it is being moved that it will want to rack.