Material Support for long sheets

[Johnny Smith]

Hi all, I fabricated a slide out material support and bolted it to the frame of the laser. For the slides I just used compound drawer slides screwed to a couple of angles which in turn are bolted to the lasers frame. Between the slides is a piece of 12mm MDF that basically acts like the base of a drawer. On the front lip of that MDF are brackets that support the upright you can see in the photos below. At the top of that upright I have a couple of threaded knobs that clamp the topmost section where the material rests. The knobs are to allow the topmost section to be adjusted up or down according to material thickness.

Background:
I have a Chinese red black laser and it came with pass through slots which allows me to use sheets of MDF or plywood that are less than 700mm wide. As it happens, most "full size" sheets here in Australia are nominally 1200mm x 2400mm so I buy these and cut them down with a circular saw to 1200 x 600 as that gives me 4 smaller sheets out of one full size sheet and saves a bunch of money. It also happens to suit my main use case. The problem then is that I have an unsupported 600mmW x 1200mmL x 3mmH sheet hanging out of the pass through slot. Until now I have been using a cardboard box with an icecream container on top to support long material....it worked but it was time to find a better way. I had considered a little stand on casters but it was just one more thing taking up floor space even when it wasn't needed and so the idea to use the drawer slides I had lying around came to mind.

Hope this helps someone.

[Gene Uselman]

I love it... nice collection of offcuts too.