Show us your vertical clamping methods!

I’ve always liked Jay’s design talents. He expands here on the original design by Frank Howarth (Vertical CNC Table and New Spoil Board - YouTube). In both cases, these guys have massively framed CNCs, and can “afford” (space, money) to add some additional (and robust) aluminum extrusions. I, like you, are looking at ways to “scale down” what they’ve done at a reasonable cost both in money and space. Thanks for the post.

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I agree. At least all of these ideas provide opportunity for adaptation to our foot print and needs (budget, space,…) I do like the geometry of his dog holes.

Hey Mike,

in this forum there has always been the approach of summarizing everything on one topic in one thread. But that only worked for a few:

For other attempts, some were followed for a certain time, e.g.

but the topics have been restarted in many new threads and the valuable information is
scattered across many posts. This means that for the topics Spindle, VFD, Huanyang, Drag Chain, Table, Enclosure, Tool change, Automatic Tool Changer, ATC, Laser, and Vertical there is a myriad of postings. That’s why one can say, the goal of bundling certain topics that interest many users hardly works.

I suggest to use “Bookmark” functionality of this forum (hidden behind the little three dots at the bottom of a posting) to collect valuable information.

Among those that I bookmarked are these that I like:

Anyway I wish you good luck with your new thread!

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I made a fixture that can mount under your table.



It has holes placed to mount to a QCW frame but it is not necessary to have one, you could easily mount it to the underside of your table in any pattern you like. Use your CNC to cut through your waste-board and line it up from underneath. The surface has a t-track pocket along with threaded insert holes and dog holes for various mounting and alignment options. A downloadable dxf and .crv file can be found here

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I made this table so i could use vertical clamping when i wanted to especially for dovetails and box joints and even loose tenons. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.


I hope this helps someone. I used a modified design of a moxon vice but with this one only the jaw moves so the screws stay in place and don’t hang out past the front of the table which I made of 4x4 left over from my outdoor kitchen build, I got the handles and acme threaded rod and nuts on amazon. all the 4x4’s were straightened on a jointer and then planed down so they were all the same size and square. and i put the whole thing on double locking casters so i could move it around my small shop. the vice jaw is made of 8 quarter rock maple and the mounting board has a fence to be able to quickly put the stock in straight. I put a dust groove in the fence as you can see

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ok more pictures of table with vertical holding.
actually holding something. perfectly square to the (still in the future any day now) onefinity journeyman.

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and here it is with it’s trap door in place now all I need to do is get the JM in and set up everything else . spoil board. keyways drag chains…etc.etc.etc.

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Here is a sketch of the acme modified moxon vice setup I hope it explains things better.

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This is great. I was considering something parallel to the front of the table. It never even occurred to me to have it parallel to the t-tracks! And it’s a lot better for space saving underneath. Thanks!

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you are very welcome. enjoy your work

Late to the party - don’t even have my machine yet, but I plan on doing something similar to @Dakotah above by making use of the spacing on the QCW frame w/ legs. I came across some optical breadboard and precise angle brackets by Base Lab Tools (https://www.baselabtools.com/Standard_c_289.html). The breadboard is essentially 1/2" solid aluminum with pre-tapped threads. Probably overkill for this sort of thing, but rigid, ready out-of-the-box, and not too expensive…

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I’m a little confused….

I see the picture and understand the concept and think it is a great idea.

I look at the link and it gives me a bunch of items which I assume is aluminum for the vertical work hold but do not know the size needed

I also looked for the STUDIO TOIYABE wasteboard layout and could not find anything.

I guess what I am trying to say is - is that if you have any links, concepts, ideas, plans related to this I would really enjoy looking into this in greater depth

Thanks in advance

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Hey @DaddyDan, I am “Studio Toiyabe,” hence the watermark. I don’t have plans to sell my wasteboard file just yet, as I don’t have the Woodworker to test them on. I could give you the vector file to demo if interested.

As for the link, that’s the company that makes the optical breadboard (scientific equipment) and angle brackets that I intend to use. My design above uses a 6”x36” breadboard, but they make them larger/smaller depending on your needs.

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Got it thanks!!!

Sorry if I sounded rude, wasn’t meant to be rude in any way. I ordered the elite Foreman back on the day it was first released.

I know nothing about CNC so I ordered the stand as well and as I was looking around on the forum I liked the idea of what you proposed and think that maybe Onefinity should look at the same idea.

Once you have a plan I would be very interested in buying. I definitely want this added to my machine as well

Thank you for the information.

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Didn’t come across as rude at all. I’m just now ordering an Elite Woodworker myself, so it will probably be the summer before I can test this out. Let me know when you get yours, and I can help you set up a vertical mount like this. I honestly don’t know if I’ll bother selling the layout file, as there’s nothing too novel at work here - just a 1-inch grid with a 3"x24" slot for the vertical section.

I did a simple moxon vise inset. Nothing fancy, but it clamps well and is “gnats a*s” accurate, which is sufficient for me, as opposed to molecular level tolerances. I use jointcam software. Can go 4" thick x 21" wide, 39" vertical and leave it open most of the time for what I do. A couple things as I look at my picture. I will never do another dovetail clamping surface out of MDF again. I may even go back to t-track and a setup like Josh’s which looks very nice, or as I progress will eventually get a larger machine with 1/2" tooling capability rather than continual upgrades. Not knocking 1F at all, its been a good machine and support is exceptional, but don’t care to get yet another rail upgrade, (original to journeyman to stiffy), Z20 slider, 80mm etc. to contend with the y axis lack of rigidity. I guess I’m outgrowing it. All said and done a few more bucks and could have an Avid or something similar. Please excuse the verbiage on the drawer front, My wife’s way of expressing her dislike for me emptying my pockets
on the kitchen counter. Yes, drawer pull will be finished. It was an afterthought.

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I like the Moxon vise. Nicely implemented. As to your spoilboard, was it the dovetail clamping or the MDF that was the issue? or both?

The MDF was just too light weight for some of the clamping I prefer. Some high density would have been better. Also, the microjig dovetail clamps are decent, but any debris left in the tails inhibits sliding them as easily as the t-track stuff.

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I purchased a sheet of Valchromat, of which I intend to use a portion for a wasteboard for precisely the reasons you mention.

Could you share a little more about the rigidity issues you have encountered? I have a friend who has an Avid 4x4. It is a really nice machine. It has a lot of really nice features but in my opinion one of the best is that it extends out in front of the bed and he has created a joinery fixture that simply clamps to the front of his table.

I am able to grab the top of the slider and push/pull slightly, enough that it is exaggerated at the tool. I really tightened up all the rails and mounts and that helped a bit, but there is still some give in the y axis. I may be over critical, but I find in some cutting that my tolerances are inconsistent, I assume, because of the density of some of the wood types or the sudden change in material with a backer board. As I’m sure you are aware, when cutting half blinds,.throughs or any other dovetail, tolerances play an important role and anything over the slightest glue line kinda bugs me. Don’t get me wrong, this machine can cut a cleaner dovetail using jointcam than I could ever do in my youth when eyes and hands were in good shape. Fwiw, I have the journeyman and a 65 spindle. That vachromat looks interesting. Curious how it works out for you.