I’m new to CNC Routers and my new onefinity foreman is scheduled to arrive on Monday evening. I’m sure I will have a zillion questions for the group, but the one I have now is, how do you hold your project down on the waste board?
DeKevin
there are many ways to do this. double sided tape, painters tape with ca glue, and many types of clamps. I have used them all in and for different situations. I have used double sided tape for foam carving of toolbox tray holders; I have used painters’ tape with ca glue for projects that are carved right to the edge of the work piece. But my most often used are these clamps that I make and sell. they are ultra-low-profile clamps for t track enabled machines. you can see the video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPTUbtQp74U yes of course i am biased but they have been reviewed by people that have no reason to lie and several folks on this forum. Good luck on your CNC adventures.
Hi DeKevin - as Robert mentioned, many different mechanisms. If I don’t need unfettered access to the top, I use clamps or screws. When I need access to the top, I use the blue tape method – I find double sided tape a little uneven and sometimes unreliable, but others love it. Maybe it’s just me.
We’re here for other questions!
-Tom
Thanks for the great advice. I’m looking forward to the adventure.
I’m a big fan of CA glue and painters tape or just old school screw it down….only thing to watch out for with screws is it can create little mounds under your work that make it uneven.
When clamping with T-track clamps is possible, I use clamps. Most often clamps get in the way, and I use screws.
I made a post about a slick workflow on the Elite with Masso, that allows the program to pre-drill holes, then pause for the operator to add screws, then continue cutting after. I use this workflow for most programs.
Started out using hold down clamps, then added blue tape, next double sided tape, dog holes, with wedges, vacuum fixtures, 90 deg fence, with wedges, then pneumatic clamps. Now almost always use the fence with pneumatic edge clamps, or vacuum fixtures. The vac fixture I am using today is held in place by the air cylinders. Work holding is quite an interesting subject, any time I start a run of parts, I start designing a fixture or trying to speed up the indexing and clamping.
We still love ca glue and blue tape.
CA and blue tape works well. I recently modeled and 3D printed some edge hugger type clamps and they’re working really well, they only take up .25” on the edge of the board.
I love the concept of the holes for pins and the crosshatching and the tape measure. Are they LASER or router?
all done with a router . now everything is done with spindle sice the upgrad from the original buildbotics machine x50. this one is a Masso elite. right next to it will be the gen two redline. below is the table before the machine was installed the space you see is with the false top removed for verticle holding and the modified moxon style vice.
I ran into the same issue when I first got my Onefinity — holding parts repeatably without constantly re-zeroing everything.
I’m a machinist by trade and use fixture plates a lot at work, so going to a router setup felt pretty limiting at first.
What worked for me early on was threaded inserts in MDF with dowel pins. It works, but I had a couple issues with it — alignment when changing setups, and the inserts would occasionally pull out over time, especially if I was tightening things down a lot.
I ended up putting together more of a fixture plate style setup so I could just drop parts in and locate off pins instead of re-indicating everything square each time.
It’s been way more consistent, especially for repeat parts.
If you’re mostly doing one-offs, inserts are still a solid option. But if you’re doing batches or tightening things down a lot, something more repeatable holds up better long term.
If you want to doubled sided projects there are a couple different ways. One is to use dowels. My favorite is to make the project symmetrical.
Creat an inset board to hold the final project in place. Make sure there is no slop. I use a -.14 allowance on the inside of the cutout line to get a tight fight.
Do a material cutout to final size.
Drop in the cutout and secure with wood tape if needed (warped or thin). Mill it. Flip over and repeat.
I do a lot of roundover work.