A bit more progress this afternoon:
Drum is solid and ready for the abrasive slots to be cut, (wish I'd remembered before gluing!) so got to work on the lift mechanism. Was a little unsure 12mm would be strong enough but seems fine. There is a small amount of movement due to slip at the base end / barrel nut but it isn't much and as I'll be fitting clamps to the side of the table, I'm sure it will work. Certainly the operation is smooth enough though I got tired of winding by hand without a handwheel and resorted to a drill. :lol:
Pics are self explanatory, threaded rod is held captive through the alloy angle which fits to the underside of the feed table, by a nut, drilled through, pinned and ground roughly round, I stuck it with epoxy for good measure. Angle is sanwiched between washers and another nut under drilled and held with cotter pin. This is as tight as I could while still allowing the rod to turn.
Main base was slotted and alloy angle rebated and fixed from underneath to form durable sides, I then fitted a sub base of melamine covered ply, (offcut of bathroom wall board) and extended the front of the baseboard around it (had made it too short, dozy git
).
Cut a slider plate out of 3mm polypropylene which brought the top of the barrel nut level with base surface for a good fit once the top alloy retaining plate was fitted.
Not the prettiest job but hopefully functional.
Won't get anything done tomorrow, babysitting a lively 3 year old granddaughter sees to that. :lol: