When watching CNC YT videos I often keep an eye out for tips and tricks that I might use outside of the instruction being presented. I don’t do YT videos so I thought I’d share this, which is possibly not very original but here you go.
I use blue tape, CA glue and fixer a lot for my work holding. For a long time I would apply the glue with a piece of scrap and then constantly curse when it either drops on the floor, welds itself to the bench or I pick up the wrong end.
I now put a bit of blue tape on my finger and use that to smear the glue evenly over the stock and dispose of it before fixing. Happy days. For me, this is a real quality of life hack😀.
Rather than deal with CA glue, I’ve been using this double-sided tape. I get it in both 1" and 2" widths, and I’ve had good luck with it. Comes off cleanly and holds well.
I use CA glue and tape holding method almost every day. I don’t bother smearing the glue, just do “sine wave” pattern along the tape on the spoilboard + spray the accelerator on the piece I’m going to work on.
Double side tape, never worked for me. I almost always had my stock move a little. Tried few kinds off. + the stronger the double side tape, the tougher it is to peal off later
Ocasionally I use my small vacuum pods.
The sinewave is a good one. However, I couldn’t use it to mill thin aluminium or brass ( say 3 mm or less) as the slight variance in the height of the glue application was proportionally too great.
I also found that rubbing the blue tape hard onto the work surface and stock with the back of a pair of scissor handles was necessary when milling out small cutouts or making small “coins” with a contour pass to stop the piece being cut out flying out or worse jarring with the bit on it’s way out.
I’ll give the brand a go. My early attempts with doubleside tape were unsuccessful; it would fold back and wrinkle, small work pieces would wobble, bit gumming…
Here’s another hack I found effective for keeping most of the dust and chips off the threads on the Y rails.
I always had a fancy for putting guards along inside the length Y rails like I see on some machines. However I couldn’t work out how to attach the 6 mm plywood (my material to hand) without issue and I didn’t have a length long enough but I did have a 10inch strip in my scrap bin. So I attached that to the Xrail block using blue tape and CA glue and it works a treat, better than expectation and hasn’t fallen off after more than a year of use.
and it works a treat, better than expectation and hasn’t fallen off after more than a year of use.
