My general overall impression is that this is going to be a good solution. By no means is this sample good enough to use but I was a bit anxious to see how things fit together. I just drilled the holes freehand because I really didn't know how things would fit together. There is a lot of stuff to potentially interfere. There are several clearance factors:
- Clearing the fillet on the inside of the angle
- The nut's clearance on the inside of the angle
- The interference of the nuts and screw heads
I was also concerned that the lengths of the screws were right. I had tested with some smaller screws for rough measurements but I knew that many things can go wrong once I started shimming things. The 25mm screws give me enough room for two shims and I could probably handle 4 flat washers and some lock washers on the 40mm screws. Right now, I didn't put any shims so it doesn't line up that well with the centerline of the tube but no point in messing with it until I have the spacing right. There is still lots of room for adjusting things. I will be mounting the center bearing closer to the edge so I really won't need that many spacers on the short screws. I will probably need to counter-bore the the angle to seat the screw heads squarely. No big problem. It would be simpler to use the architectural angle that has a square inside corner but I will work with what I already have. I will now measure how far I need to space them to leave room for wrenches and make a fixture to hold the pieces for drilling on the drill press. It is also going to give a lot of space to mount other stuff to the complete carriages. I was also concerned that it would not be rigid enough but once I tighten up the screws, it stiffens up nicely. I could even make it more rigid by adding another bearing and screw in the middle but it would complicate getting things aligned. I could alternatively go with just some spacers.
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