Support slat spacing

[SoundManCO]

After looking at the table builds on here I see what looks like a large range of slat spacing. Some look like 1" and others are far greater. What are the things that you considered when setting up the slat spacing and why did you go the route you did?

[HardcorewannabeXJ]

The biggest thing is considering the size of the parts you are going to cut, and the "tip-up's" that could potentially grab the torch head.

We typically go with 3" on our larger machines with AVHC, because the torch actually retracts 3" in between cuts. If the slats are closer together, you can cut smaller parts without having them tip up. The closer they are together, you'll have more so you can also make them skinnier.

[SoundManCO]

I am going to be cutting a lot of small stuff so I will probably go with 1" spacing on my slats. I also decided not to go with a downdraft table but a water table instead. There are to many benefits to a water table not to go that route.

[Dave Boyd]

Ours is 3.5" apart. the slats also have an arc.

[LASER]

Laser guy here again:
What I have done in several machines is notch the end of the slat so that when they are inverted they drop another inch. Then I make smaller sacraficial risers for the jobs that incolve lots of close quarter high power cutting. The small risers sit on top of the main slats and make up the height difference.

[SoundManCO]

Originally Posted by LASER

Laser guy here again:
What I have done in several machines is notch the end of the slat so that when they are inverted they drop another inch. Then I make smaller sacraficial risers for the jobs that incolve lots of close quarter high power cutting. The small risers sit on top of the main slats and make up the height difference.

I made my slats out of 1.5"x1/8" bar stock and set it up so they are flush with the top of the table. I like the idea of notching out the slats to drop them in a little.

[ron678]

Originally Posted by SoundManCO

I made my slats out of 1.5"x1/8" bar stock and set it up so they are flush with the top of the table. I like the idea of notching out the slats to drop them in a little.

Notching slats sounds like a lot of work that must be precise to get them all level at once. Wouldn't it just be easier to build a riser for your machine rails so you could slip the material under the cross bar and still have all the slats level.
I haven't built my table yet but I can see problems with the cross bar interfering with material longer than 24 inches if I want to index on a longer table.

[SoundManCO]

Originally Posted by ron678

Notching slats sounds like a lot of work that must be precise to get them all level at once. Wouldn't it just be easier to build a riser for your machine rails so you could slip the material under the cross bar and still have all the slats level.
I haven't built my table yet but I can see problems with the cross bar interfering with material longer than 24 inches if I want to index on a longer table.

I built the rests for the support slats so that they are flush with the top of the table. If I need to drop them down a little I can by getting smaller stock or notching out the slats. The cross bar riser that you speak of is going to be a must have for anything larger than 2x2.