Fixtures and work holding.

[NylonAdmiral]

Hi all,

I'm looking at making a fixture plate for my mill to try and facilitate quicker, more repeatable machine setup.

I originally intended to implement the idea as illustrated in this thread:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...108#post716108

However, following input from other users in a previous thread of mine here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...524#post727524

I'm unsure of the best way to do this. A few people have been kind enough to offer their thoughts on the matter but I thought I would start a new thread specifically for this subject in the hope others might be able to give me some input too.

My original plan was to use my mill to drill into its own slotbed to position four dowel pins. This would then allow me to repeatabley position a fixture plate onto these pins with a reasonable degree of accuracy. In the fixture plate would be a series of dowel holes and threaded holes to allow me to position stock on the fixture plate.

Some people seem to support this method, others have advised against it. As I'm open to any and all suggestions I was wondering if any of you out there can give any advice from experience on the best way to do this?

Thanks!

[rowbare]

There are pros and cons to that approach. If most of your work is done using fixtures and you change fixtures frequently, it would certainly be a big time saver. If all you are doing is mounting a fixture plate semi-permanently, it is probably just as easy to indicate it and determine your x-y offsets once you have it squared off.

If you choose to pin your table, there is an nice how-to on the Industrial Hobbies site: http://www.ihcnc.com/pages/mill-tips.php
See the Pinning your table and Making a fixture sections.

And if you want to learn a lot about fixtures: "http://www.amazon.com/Fixture-Design-Delmar-Learning-Drafting/dp/1401811078/ref=dp_ob_title_bk"]Amazon.com: Jig and Fixture Design, 5E (Delmar Learning Drafting) (9781401811075): Edward Hoffman: Books

bob