Material Choice

A sketch of the desired adapter plate would help.

I would use and design for 6061, and only if that cannot work, worry about other materials, and the reason that 6061 flunked will be informative.

Joe Gwinn

Bob La Londe

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When I need a small piece of mild steel I buy it from the scrap bins of local fabricators. Other than finding the right size the only issue has been bandsaw-dulling local hardness of flame or plasma cut edges. I carry a compact tape measure, a 4" dial caliper that fits a shirt pocket and cash.

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You think the stress would be too high for 6061T6?? Machines easily.

That's what I used to make an adapter plate to mount a power feed on my mill . I'm pretty sure the acceleration loading on the ball screw is going to be many times what my power feed produces on the acme screw .

I gather that you don't do much very-high-precision work? If so then

If it's going to be overly stressed then supersize it, but in most cases I wouldn't bother.

Peter Fairbrother

Compared to the what guys brag about doing with their machine... er I mean their boss's ... er I mean their boss's bank's million dollar machines in multi million dollar environmentally controlled laboratory clean rooms. No.

I do keep a couple to a few thousandths tolerance all day with my cheap machines, and for the types of work I do acceleration is huge in productivity. A change of a few iss acceleration can save hours per day when you are doing iterative short 3D machine passes.