Hi everyone...I need some help in figuring out what kind of part(s) I need for my project. I plan to use a piece of 20x80 rail about 3 feet long. I want to mount a plate on this rail to support a steady rest. This steady rest doesn't need to slide up and down the rail on wheels, but I will need to move the plate/steady rest to different positions on the rail from time to time, but not often. So I don't think I need the plate mounted on wheels. The steady rest is fairly heavy (3 pounds) so I'm not sure if this setup (V-Slot Gantry Set) would hold the weight well or not? Anyway, I'd like to find some kind of plate that will manually slide within the 20x80 frame that I can attach the mounting plate to (that the steady rest is mounted to) and just manually re-position the whole unit up and down the rail as needed. But I can't seem to find that kind of manually sliding plate that I can manually slide on the rails. Thanks for any help...
You might take a look at Adjustable Router Guide Template. It shows rails sliding relative to rails but it's not much of a stretch to transition to plates sliding relative to rails. I would recommend the slip sheets shown as it would help prevent the plate from scraping off the anodizing. A further update to the original concept using quick release levers can be found here. (Clamps prefaced here.)
