I spent the last week or so designing and building an extended base plate for my wife's Longarm quilting machine. I based it on a similar design she saw online, but would not fit her machine. It was the first project I have used my new Burke #4 milling machine on.
I drew the plate layout in CAD, then printed it out full size and used a glue stick to attach to the aluminum plate. Bought the 1/8" x10" dia. plate on Ebay.
I started out trying to use a piece of 3/4" square tube I had laying around for the clamp arm, but there was not enough clearance to use a straight piece, so I had to make this one with a dog leg in it. (you'll see what I mean in the final pictures). I ran into interference issues between the tool holder and the vise, so couldn't make the offset large enough. Instead of refixturing it on the angle plate, I decided to turn down the plastic knobs to get the clearance.
You can see the clearance issues I had in this picture. I also had to make and mount a small angle plate on each side to support the extended base plate. These stay on the longarm machine.
Another view with it mounted on her longarm machine. I painted it so the aluminum won't make dark marks on the fabric. It can be mounted and removed with no tools required.
She seems happy...... and if momma's happy, everyone is happy!
Doing this project with the idea of posting it, I still didn't take enough pictures. My compliments to all who post with such good documentation. It's not as easy as it looks.
