Introduction & Overview (0:00-2:00)
0:05-2:00: “Hello. Hello, I’m Chris. And this is Mason once again. We’re gonna continue on with the, again, two days of CNC operations training. Uh, so far, Mason, you’ve been able to cover and sit up and cut parts on all three, the workstations, the horizontal, the vertical, and the turning workstation. That’s right. Well done. You were able to answer any questions you had and it was, it was good. We were able to take you from square one to again, being able to sit up and cut parts. The next thing we’re gonna cover today though, is we’re gonna be going over table fixtures. Mm-hmm. And I guess table fixtures is a broad term ’cause that’s gonna cover fixturing in the turning center, fixturing in the vertical table and fixturing in the horizontal table. Um, the reason this is so critical is because you could set up the machine perfectly. You could be a perfect programmer and designer, but if that part slips or moves during that machining process, it’s all for nothing. Mm-hmm. Right. So, uh, we’re gonna cover all three workstations on the most common ways of holding down parts that our customers are using right now. And also tie it to some of the resources that we have available for all of our customers. You’ll be able to participate in that. Okay. All right. Okay. So let’s start working backwards since we just finished with the, uh, turning center. Mm-hmm. Let’s start with the actual turning center, showing some different turning options to hold down parts, um, pertaining to that workstation. And then we’ll go to the vertical and then last the horizontal work table. Okay. Okay. So let’s, uh, let’s check this out. In the last cutting demonstration, we showed this as a standard fixture for holding the part in place. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, so this is a self centering for jaw chuck and has a key, which obviously when we tighten or loosen this, those jaws, they expand and contract together in uniform to make it. So again, self centers our blank right in the headstock. And then we had our tell stock that came and supported against the end.”
Turning Center Fixturing (2:00-15:00)
1:58-4:34: “and supported against the end. Now the first thing let’s talk about on different ways of holding down parts is the tell stock. ’cause that’s the one you’re probably gonna switch out the least. Mm-hmm. Um, and this has what’s called a number two Morris taper shaft here in the end. And so this is an example of what a life center looks like. This is a number two Morris taper, um, shaft. Um, and that literally just slides right into the end of this shaft. This one had one as well. Um, so we can pop this out and put this one in instead. This is the standard one that comes with the machine. It has a spring loaded point, and then it has these kind of teeth that dig into the end of your blank. And this works great for a, a, a lot of applications, um, until you get to a small enough diameter on the end to where the cutter’s getting too close to this final diameter. Mm-hmm. Um, and then you’d wanna switch to something that again, can narrow out something like this. So this has a, a 60 degree cone to it. And so this gives you additional clearance if you’re going down to a smaller diameter towards the tell stock. So there’s different situations. I usually like this. Um, it seems to be more secure for most, um, applications that you’re trying to apply when it comes to putting a blank and supporting in the tell stock. But there are situations again where you need to have something a little more delicate or, um, going to a smaller diameter. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so all you gotta do is get a number two more taper. You can get all sorts of different live center ends or tips. Uh, but these are the, the two most common that we’ve used. Um, spring loaded tip versus a 60 degree comb. Right. And we saw that we were able to adjust the, uh, tailstock either back or forward to apply that supporting pressure. Um, so this won’t be something you need to switch out often, but it’s nice to be able to do so just in case for whatever situation or type of part you’re running to give yourself additional clearances. Now, the other side, the four jaw check, this is where you’re gonna be adjusting most of your fixtures. Uh, this one we have the standard jaws on here. And so with, with the, uh, four jaw check that we currently send with the machines, we send the, the record power brand. Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, the SC three record power is what we currently send with the machines. And that may change over time as we get access to different types of four jaw chucks from our suppliers. Yeah. But you can invest in addition, uh, additional jaws and so you can switch out your jaws to be a lot larger. I mean, for example, you can kinda see this”
4:38-14:30: “Coming to life here, here we go. See, so you can grip on a, a bigger diameter and expand to a bigger diameter. Yeah. Um, other, unlike your, your standard jaws, they go a little smaller. You can also go as small of what are called pin jaws. Right. So if you don’t go big, you can also go the other the other way. So you can get some really small diameter holding fixtures in order to apply that to the, to the chuck. Yeah. I mean, all it takes is you just take out the bolts on the end of the, the jaw. So this is a bolt on the end here. There’s two of them on this plate. Yeah. Um, and you just take your little, little wrench and you can pop those on and off. You just need to make sure that you’re lining up the, the number of the, uh, jaw itself. So this is a number two, and each one of these jaws are gonna be numbered as well. So you can see there’s a number four. Um, there’s a number three. So I would want to put two in the two position that will ensure that everything is centered accordingly, um, when it comes to the four jaws themselves. Now the cool thing about any of these jaws is we can use the clamping force in two different directions. Mm-hmm. We were clamping on the outside of the blank and pressing down. Right. Yeah. We were contracting down on the outside of the, of the surface of the material. We can do the opposites as well by putting these jaws inside a pocket and spreading outwards, huh? Yeah, it’s pretty cool. And so if you had, let’s say a a a large column mm-hmm. Right? I can’t grip take this and grip over the end of that column. Yeah. That would take some massive jaws. Right. But that doesn’t mean we can’t bore a hole that’s, let’s say two inches in diameter, a quarter of an inch on the end of that blank and then insert it directly over those jaws and then spread those outwards and it’ll grip from the inside out. Alright. Okay. So these can be used in two different directions to go small or large, um, which gives a really a lot of versatility. Um, the other thing that we can do, um, to kind of visualize that of kind of how it spreads outwards is using what’s called a face plate ring. So if I don’t wanna bore a hole on the end of my blank or I don’t have enough room or material to do, so Yeah, lemme grab a, a blank as a example. So this guy for example, um, I didn’t want to put a big hole in the very end of this because then my wall thickness would be getting kind of thin here on the edges. Yeah. And I don’t wanna accidentally bust out the material because I don’t have enough stability in, in the blank. So instead I mounted this face plate ring as center as I could get it. It just has four screws that mount to the end of the blank. You can see those hole patterns right there of me marking them out. Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, and then this acts the same way. This has an an internal ring that can go over those jaws. So if we take this and plant this inwards, this will then slide over those jaws and then we can spread them out and it will grip right onto that ring. Huh. Using the same concept spreading outwards. And so now I can apply a face plate ring to different size blinks as well, um, if I don’t want to bore a hole on the end of my material. Okay. So this just again, takes the four jaw up to another level of being able to handle different size parts, uh, to accommodate whatever we’re trying to do. Um, you can get different size rings, so just like you can get different size jaws, um, they do have different size rings that you can get and then you’ll have to get the jaws to obviously match them. Yeah. So it’ll fit, uh, so you can mix and match this almost any way you’d like. Um, when it comes to using these, uh, four jaws and different configurations. Okay. Now what I like to do for most of my fixtures, uh, I like to give myself a little buffer space of material that I’m just simply going to cut off after I’m done machining it. Uh, same with my tail stock. You can see here I’ve cut a little extra, um, here. So again, I’ll just cut that off to length. Mm-hmm. I’ve even used the machine to give me, give myself a cut mark so I can just line that edge right up with my, you know, chop saw or table saw and, and knock that right off to the exact length it needs to be. Same here. Right. Okay. Yeah. Um, my standard rule that I like to do is I add about an inch inch to an inch and a half of extra material here, especially if I’m using the ring. Because if I use screws that go, you know, a little bit longer than one inch Yeah. And I don’t have one inch material there, I could accidentally machine into the ends of those screws. And you wouldn’t want to do that. No, no. I kind of doge your cutter and, and bangs things up a little bit. So, um, I like an inch and a half here is, is my go-to specifically when I’m using screws for a face plate ring. Um, if I’m just going right inside the jaws, the jaws are gonna gobble up at least a half inch of material on the outside. Then I like to start cutting at least a half of an inch forward from those jaws. Um, just again, give myself some buffer space so I don’t accidentally run into those with a cutter. Okay. Yeah. That’s no fun either. Um, so it’s just nice to give yourself some buffer on top of the blank that you’re actually going to be producing. Okay. Same thing on my tele stock. Uh, ’cause again, you can make it so your cutter doesn’t get too close to your live center, so you don’t accidentally run into those. It’s simple enough just to chop off the end of the material when necessary. Yeah. Better safe than sorry. Exactly. So, uh, this is gonna be your go-to, uh, 99% of the time. This covers most turning applications. Now there are other turning fixtures that you can look into. Mm-hmm. For example, I could thread this off of my headstock shaft. This has a set screw to it. If I took off the set screw and unthreaded it, there would be a still shaft here that’s one inch in diameter that has eight threads per inch. Okay. That’s a really common thread size for laths lay accessories very similar to this. Yeah. Right. Now what we’re going to make sure that we apply to this is when we, um, are threading on a fixture like this four jaw chuck, I want to ensure that I have some way of locking it directly onto that shaft. Yeah. ’cause this turning center rotates in both directions. Right. Positive and negative axis Yeah. From earlier. Um, and we don’t want this to accidentally back thread during the middle of our program, right? Yeah. Where things can come loose. And that’s really critical when we start getting into indexing because if it loses its position or is slipping or sliding in there, none of this is gonna be accurate, right? Yeah. Uh, so we need this to be very secure, um, in both directions of rotation, unlike a lathe which only rotates or, or turns and applies force to the fixture in one direction. Okay. We apply force in both directions. Um, so with that shaft, this one inch diameter shaft that has eight threads per inch, we can apply, uh, the fixtures. Here’s an example of one. So this is the, uh, this is called a call it chuck, and we’ll explain this in just a second, but this has the, the thread diameter in order to thread that directly onto that shaft. Yeah. And I have set screws here, um, that I can lock that in to ensure that this doesn’t back thread. Now the, this is a tied to colts on the end here, so I can switch this out, er 32 colts mm-hmm. To accommodate whatever bar size I wanna put into this. This is a quarter inch, uh, mandrel that’s in here, but you can get different diameters. Here’s a three eights as an example. Yeah. So these type of mandrels are used a lot for, um, kind of kits crafts, um, where you need to bore out the center of your blank and then either hold it from the center out. Mm-hmm. Like this guy, I would slide my blank over this, tighten this screw and that brass expands holding it from the inside out, very similar to the four jaw shots. Yeah. Right. But it’s an entire kind of tube mm-hmm. Instead of just a single end. Right. This is for a duck call. Okay. They make, they make, um, duck l calls, sorts of different calls from this a call mandrel. Whereas this one here is a, uh, traditional quarter inch mandrel for turning like pens and crafts and kits. Okay. You know, perfume vials, that type of thing. You can get different mandrels, you know, to handle let’s say a, a pepper grinders and all sorts of things where you have to draw out the, the, the core and insert hardware. How do you hold those hollow vessels in your machine? You’re gonna use your mandrels to do so. Okay. And then those mandrels can be held with this type of fixture called a call chuck. Okay. Okay. Um, so this is the kind of secondary that I’ve used here in the past for a very unique or a very specialized fixturing pertaining to kits and, uh, kits and fixtures. Okay. Um, other than that, those are really the, the main things that you’re gonna be using. You can create custom fixtures, like face plate rings of your own to accommodate different sizes. We can just cut those out on our three axis horizontal table Yeah. To make any pocket size. We wish, I’ve seen people do that with bowls. So they’ll take the blank, they’ll cut a, um, a pocket with the dovetail kind of angle. Yeah. And that will go right over, right over those four jaws and then spread outwards. And then they can turn this bowl in here, but they’re able to turn that pot, or should we say machine that pocket right on the horizontal table first. Awesome. Yeah. Nice. So lots of different ways we can work with this. Um, it’s just getting creative, but the literally the jaws and the face plate rings, they will, they will work with most, most of the woodworking applications that you’re trying to do here in the turning center with the legacy CNC. Yeah. Cool. Any other questions on, I guess, holding down or, or different parts or fixtures that we’re kind of working with? Um, no, I think you’ve covered most of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, just, just the rudimentary stuff. Again, most common what customers are using. Um, just gonna give you a reminder here that every time we switch out the fixture, there’s gonna be one access that will need to be updated. Yes. That is in the control software. That is the X AEs, right? Yes. Yeah. ’cause we put a a plate on here. Right. Okay. And, and we tighten that up.”
14:34-15:01: “Now, X zero is gonna be a different position from those jaws, right? Yeah. So I, for example, on this guy, I placed my X zero right on the edge of that face plate ring. Mm-hmm. And then I program everything an inch and a half forward like this, right? Yeah. Inch and a half forward from those, those edges. So yeah. So you’ll have to update your X axis to accommodate whatever fixture you’re planning to use here. Yeah. So from, from what I’m seeing, the best course”
Vertical Workstation Fixturing (15:00-30:00)
14:56-18:48: “Yeah. So from, from what I’m seeing, the best course of action is to preset up all of your tools that you use most often in the, in the, uh, yeah. The c CNC controller. We have those, we have those quick access work offsets, right? Mm-hmm. We have the five right there that we can choose right on the turning, turning screen. Um, and yes, you can title them any way you want. So you have, for example, the standard jaws. The standard jaws with a ring. Yeah. You can go to larger or smaller jaws. We can go to a, call it Chuck and yes, you can title and organize your fixtures or those, those work offsets, um, pertaining to the actual fixture that you’re using in the machine. That makes it nice because the next time you go back to this fixture Yeah. All you have to do is select the correct work offset pertaining to that name and the X has already been updated from the last time you used it. Yeah. It’s not like you have to go reset it up every single time, which is again, makes this even faster and easier to use for a production environment. All right. Sweet. Well, let’s move on to the vertical workstation showing you different ways of holding and mounting parts there. Um, that we’ve experimented and even created ourselves as well. All right. So our, our vertical workstation, this is the one that goes along the Y axis. Yeah. Right. We also have another one that goes in the turning center at well as well. Uh, we’ll show that taking place in just a moment. It’s technically the same types of fixtures that we use here. Yeah. Just being applied along the x axis instead of along the Y axis. Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, so this will be our core foundation of understanding how this works before we show that. Okay. Okay. Now, uh, we did mention when, when we were talking about, uh, when loading and cutting apart on the vertical table, we went through some of the basics understanding of what this is, right? Yeah. We went through the whole hole patterns here. Quarter 20, drilled and drilled and tapped hole pattern that’s two inch by two inch centers. Um, then we have the five H through holes that are two inch by two inch centers. And we can use this to attach, uh, fences, clamps, um, in order to hold down and, and position parts exactly where we want them to be. Yeah. Right. Um, this entire plate, if we loosen this up, okay, on both ends, we can pivot this entire thing from zero to even 90 degrees. Oh. So you can create some mitered angles. Again, with the part here, we increase some mi angles going along the X axis Okay. Adjustment there. So if we put that back down to where our bottoms out, we can tighten those up and you can always check yourself with a, a square or a digital angle box. Okay. There’s lots of options to make sure that’s exactly where it needs to be, um, when getting your angles correct. Now, right now, again, this entire system is gonna be coming with this longer fence. So we’ll show how to use that. Yeah. Uh, but we also have two additional fences that we mentioned earlier. Um, we’ll put those on and just show how to again, use those as well. Okay. So with this guy, um, it’s gonna match the whole pattern here of our quarter twenties, the four inch spacing between the top and the bottom. Yeah. And so we can place this vertically technically anywhere we want along these rows that are two inch spacing. Mm-hmm. Um, it’s gonna be defaulted, um, here on the far right side, um, for when, when it comes with your machine, that’s typically where we mount it. Yeah. But that can be, um, moved and put anywhere we wish. So with that involved, if I wanted to take a part here and mount it like we did earlier, we showed the two different options. There was the, I guess you could say the welding clamps or dog clamps. Yeah. Um, that just go into a pin. And these are, are very useful. It makes, makes the job very fast, getting parts in and out once you got the fixture set up. So I can put this in here,”
18:51-30:01: “I can slide that here and simply tighten that down. Okay. And we can repeat that for, you know, a second clamp down here as well. Yeah. Right. Um, and that holds our part vertically so we can machine on the, the ends or edges. And again, I can even create fixtures to again, work with parts this way as well if I need to. Yeah. Right. Uh, alright. So the other type of clamp, um, besides this one is a third party clamp. And this is the, the in or toe clamp, right? Yeah. Okay. And so we showed that we can simply attach this, this was originally designed to be used with these hex head bolts that come with the system. Um, if you reverse it around and you actually put the hex head up through the top of the handle first so that the threads are coming through the bottom. Okay. The threads are coming through the bottom. Yeah. We can go through the top and then just simply thread that by hand into our aluminum plate. Right. And make sure that just makes full contact with those threads. Okay. So I feel it coming through the back here. Um, and now we can pinch this in place using that toe CLA method. All right. Okay. Pretty straightforward. Um, again, those are, those are very common methods of holding parts down here in the, in the vertical fence itself. Now, let’s show you some additional things here that’s tied to this vertical fence is you have two different, uh, positions for these styles of clamps here, okay? Mm-hmm. Um, so you have two sets of holes, not just vertically, but also along the width so I can accommodate different thicknesses. Yep. Okay. Um, and so here I could get up to, it looks like just a little over two inches, maybe two and a half inches approaching three inches here. Mm-hmm. Okay. On that width. But eventually I could have material that could be even too thick for this style of clamp. Yeah. Right. Um, and so what would be my alternative if I had a, a blank here that was even, you know, five inches thick? ’cause the cutter, the cutter can travel beyond this aluminum plate. Yeah. Um, almost eight inches. Oh dang. Okay. It has a lot of, um, cutting area here that we can use to our advantage. So how can we clamp, um, those unique fixtures? Well, there’s other types of clamps out here that you can get. These are work the same way called the J clamps, but this is from strong hand tools as a third party clamp, and they also have the five eights pins. And so we could actually pop those in there and work with really thick components now. Oh yeah. And instead of going into the side of the fence, these plug directly into the face. Yeah. Okay. And then I can apply straight pressure here and these are kind of, kind of flex a little sideways as I apply that, that face pressure. Right. So we can get rid of this and we’ll show you that. Okay. So if I have a thick part here, um, again, I just tried this recently that this covers up these holes so I can use these smaller clamps. Right. Um, but if I place this here, I can then bring this j clamp over and we can tighten that in place. And there you have it. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. Okay. Now I like to again spread out my clamping forces. I showed that, um, in, in, again, when we were clamping our, our vertical part, um, when you were cutting that earlier, I placed this in incre toe clamps in two hole patterns. Mm-hmm. So that it applied a force here on the left side as well as a clamping force here on the right side. Yeah. Kind of spread out the clamping force. We can do a similar thing here. What I’ll, what I like to do, um, to, to accomplish that is I’ll actually move this fence over a couple of hole patterns so that I have access to the five eights holes. Mm-hmm. We don’t have to move everything, but we’ll get access to these five eights holes. But on the backside of the fence. Yeah. Because then I can just simply insert this and this reach is directly over. Okay. And I can still get access to clamping forces on the backside of that fence. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So it’s really versatile and you can just again, move this, um, vice, or should we say fence anywhere we wish, uh, pertaining to the whole patterns. Now the other feature that we have, um, tied into specifically this fence is there’s a stopping plate. Okay. So this has two knobs on here. And again, these are about every two inches, uh, in distance, but the plate will adjust up and down. Okay. Okay. A little over an inch or so, almost two inches in adjustment for every one of these hole patterns going all the way to the floor. Okay. Okay. So if I wanted to, I could actually remove these handles. Okay. Bring this up here, let’s say to the top hole pattern just for this process. And we’ll put those back into those holes and we’re not gonna tighten ’em up just yet. Just so we can adjust the fence and we can bring this. And if I wanted it to say, be right there. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let’s clamp it in place just so we have something to reference. So if I clamp that in place saying that’s exactly where I want it to be, I can bring this fence up to the bottom of the part and then lock those in place. Alright. So now I can get my part in and out the exact same position every single time, um, without having to use, we, last time we used kind of this stopping plate from the top. This is one coming from the bottom instead. Alright. So you could use that as well as, as part of your fixturing to again, get parts in and out these exact same location. So that’s a fun little feature and you can detach this at any time just by taking out those knobs. So that is the, this is the, the basic fence that comes with the system. Now that’s been updated to this with these clamping fe uh, features. We do have, uh, two additional fences. These are the, uh, steel fences. So this has the whole pattern that again, will attach directly to our plate. Yeah. I’ve seen this used in two different ways. You can create another vertical fence right. Where it stops against that vertical fence like that. Yeah. Um, but I’ve also seen it applied like this. Okay. So then you can lay parts, you know, perfectly parallel to the machine Right. In that regard. So if you need to work on the edges, you can also use that as, as a guide for that type of fence. So if we grab just some bolts here real quick, and we don’t need to tighten everything down, but at least this will show how this can be used. Right. I can place that here and this one down here. Okay. And if I bring it all the way here, same thing. It goes vertical mm-hmm. All the way down stopping it goes. I’m sorry, I said that wrong. You go here, it’s horizontal. Yeah. And here it’s now vertical. Yeah. Right. And then we can go any degree in between and to lock it in place, again, we can use our digital angle box to get this magnetized so we can get that to the right angle that we need it to be. Oh. And then lock that in place. That’s very cool. So with, in addition to this, you have almost three dimensions of, of angles. Yeah. We actually have, uh, it’s the two, um, the two adjustments. So we can adjust this again in this parameter along the X axis. This one allows us to adjust along the y axis. And so by combining them together, you’re exactly right. You can actually create a compound angle effect and then machine on whatever compound angle that it, that calls for. So yeah, you can do some really trick stuff. This has the ability to get you to those surfaces. Yeah. That’s crazy. It is. It’s really cool. Um, so yeah, between those two, you have the pivot fence here and the, and the pivot of the entire fixture. We have a lot of, um, control of where the part’s located, but yeah, that’s the, uh, the pivot fence that will come with your system as well. Just locking right into again, that same hole pattern that’s, that’s already here on the face of the plate. Okay. Excellent. Now the, we’ve been talking about straight edge parts so far. Yeah. Right. So we have straight fences, they have straight, um, straight edge parts, but that’s not always gonna be the case. Mm-hmm. Right? What if I have a part that doesn’t have a lot of straight edges to it? Oh yeah. Okay. So especially if I need to hold it like this vertically to machine, maybe some, some joiner here on the, on that face. Yeah. Um, I don’t want to try to bank that this is gonna be correct. Yeah. By trying to just put that little face up against my fence and hope that’s in the right position. Right. Yeah. And then well, and then what happens when you machine away that face and it’s no longer the same. Exactly. And you now pivot and try to do it again for another surface. It can get a little, little hectic based on organic sheep components, right? Mm-hmm. So one thing we can do with the machine is we can create our own fences. Oh. And so this is just done on the horizontal table and we’re able to take the whole pattern of those quarter twenties Right. And place them based on the shape of the part that we want to mount in the machine. Yeah. So this was done for the threaded stool project, and this actually holds three different parts in this fence. You have, um, two different sizes of the threaded nuts. So this one goes here, right? Mm-hmm. And the smaller one would go here. And then we also had a leg. So the leg went in here and came all the way down, followed that curve. Okay. Okay. So there were three different parts that were, again, more organic that we needed to create joinery all the mortis for. Yeah. Um, and this one fixture, this one plate was able to hold everything in the correct position every single time. Okay. Nice. So yeah, so that just simply matches to the whole pattern here. And now we can place our parts and clamp that with whatever method we want. If it’s covering up the pinholes, then either you have to machine out pockets for those, these types of clamps, like the J clamps. Um, or you could just drill the holes for the quarter twenties if you want to use something like the, uh, in or toe clamps. Yeah. Right. There’s another type of clamp that can be used as well. Um, I’ve done this in the past and I, I don’t have the right type of face, but imagine if this, um, type of board had a bunch of hole patterns that matched this, right? Yeah. So every two inches, and you could use this as a vice plate. Oh. So theoretically this is kind of showing that, right? So if this was here and you could use all thread of any length you want. Mm-hmm. And then you can tie this directly to that fence, I’m sorry, the, the plate here. And if you did that on a second one, let’s see over here. Yeah. You, you’re, you’re, you’re catching, you’re seeing it. I see it, I see the vision. Grab some handles the knobs, just thread those on and you can see how it just presses it right in. And we can just put parts in between those vices.”
Horizontal Workstation Fixturing (30:00-45:00)
29:58-37:14: “And we can just put parts in between those vices. So I like to put ’em between the bolts, but you theoretically could put ’em on the outside as well and just use that as a unique, um, a unique clamp and fixture. Right? Yeah. So this is Just a different way of, of Yeah, exactly. You could place it here, we could place it vertically through Yeah. Any way we wanted. And all you gotta do is press that in place, tighten those knobs, you’ve now created a, a vice plate, um, as well just using all threads and knobs with the whole pattern on a, on another component. Very nice. So yeah, so there’s all sorts of unique and creative ways that you can use this. Um, but the most common are the ones that we just showed. It’s using, um, the clamps with the fences. Mm-hmm. Um, and even third party clamps like the in ccra toe clamps. Um, and then even alternative methods like this if you need to create your own fences or fixtures, um, just with very cheap and easy to get access to components. Yeah. Alrighty. So that is the basics when it comes to just understanding how to mount parts in different ways to the vertical table itself. And we’ve had customers create even, even more alternatives to that same concept, is that you can bolt something to that plate. And so I’ve seen people create t track tables. Oh. And they bolt t track tables right. To this. So they have a vertical t track table instead. And now you can start using like the low pro clamps, you know, and other hardware to hold things vertical. So you can look outside the box and set this up any way you want. Um, it’s just whatever you feel is necessary for the woodworking that you need. Yeah. So you can see that this, based on what we have already, is going to accommodate probably 99% of what’s thrown at the machine. Yeah. But you can customize your fixtures to really accommodate almo literally anything that is, that comes to the platform. Yeah. So it’s really cool. All right. You got any, uh, questions or ideas or concepts here that we can cover for you? It’s a lot of information on, yeah. Yeah. But it’s really cool. So is there any, uh, benefit you, you said that this matches the same, uh, threading patterns. We can move it over. Yes. Can we also move it ver uh, horizontally? So, and that’s a great question. You know, outside of the box thinking is this was designed to go vertically, but technically if we, if we measure that right, this entire plate is 29 inches long. Mm-hmm. Okay. Roughly 29 inches long. Right? So as long as the width here can be 29. So this whole pattern here is only on the top half. Uh, ’cause that’s all it needs to be connected when it’s vertical. Yeah. Um, but if you do pivot it, the, the distance will match. Right. Four inches down, it’s also four inches across the whole pattern will match vertically, but you’re probably gonna run outta space. ’cause this is 24 inches from that whole pattern to here is only 24 before you get into the, uh, a axis turning center. Yeah. So that would probably not be able to fit in this situation. Um, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t create fixtures that could accommodate for that. Okay. Let’s move on to the horizontal work table. Okay. Um, this is the, the horizontal work table is the most used out of all the workstations. Yeah. Um, and so we’re gonna cover, um, a little bit more in depth information on three different types of table fixtures. Um, as well as one of the key things you need to do to your base table. Okay. Okay. So the horizontal work table, um, previously we had to take the tables off in order to expose the turning center. Yes. Right. And we saw how simple that was by removing a couple of bolts with a hole pattern and we can easily detach or reattach those tables at any time. Yeah. So these hole patterns are, are being held down with inserts, uh, for each one. So there’s one hole pattern for the base table, and there’s a separate hole pattern on top of the grid table that we’re gonna talk about and show those differences in just a moment so that the spoil board table can attach to the grid and the grid can attach to the base table. Right. All right. Okay. Now the first thing that every one of our customers needs to do when they first receive their machine, regardless if they have a vacuum table system with a machine or not, is we need to surface our base table. Mm-hmm. So this is a, a steel welded frame, and that means there’s gonna be some, uh, deformities or deflections in the material over the frame in certain areas, which is why we go through a whole testing and calibration process to make sure the axes, you know, are driven straight and true parallel and perpendicular. Um, so everything is rock solid before it leaves here. The one thing we don’t do here though, um, is surface the base table. ’cause we need to do that after the machine has been placed in your shop. Okay. Um, then once the machine has been, um, moved to your shop, we need to surface that base table. So you’ll need to remove all these table fixtures if that’s what came with the machine. Mm-hmm. So we’ll need to remove the, the spoil board tables. We’ll need to remove the vacuum grid tables, the white grid tables, um, like we did earlier and just expose the base table. Okay. Now, we have already implemented a whole pattern here. You’re gonna see the base table is mounted directly to the frame. Mm-hmm. And we have a whole pattern here, um, in our base table. And the base table actually expands over the turning center and we have the whole pattern here as well, so that we can attach, um, here on our main table as well as over the turning center, the open bay, um, attaching it here to our support table as well. Okay. Now to, to surface the base table, we’re gonna use one cutter. It’s that inch and a quarter surfacing cutter. We use that to turn around mm-hmm. Here in our turning center. And it’s actually the same cutter we used to, to machine the tenon. Um, we only did the mortis last time, but if you did the 10, that would’ve used the inch and a quarter surfacing cutter as well. So it’s a very common cutter that’s used all over the place. And that’s simply going to perform a raster technique of zigzagging back and forth across the length of the machine, um, surfacing off that horizontal table. Now there’s two notes that we need to, that we need to do. We need to remove the table fixtures, obviously, so we have access to the base table and two, if we have these pins. Okay. These are the stopping pins, right. The, um, locating pins for the vacuum table. Those need to be detached as well so that we do not accidentally hit them as we are surfacing our base table. Okay. Okay. So let’s show you where you can detach that, the bolts, uh, bolt locations, and then you can set it to the side. Let’s show you that. So here’s the locating pin, and you can see that if we were to surface the base table, it runs into risk of, of running into this. So there’s a couple of bolts here that can detach this entire fixture. I don’t recommend taking these two bolts out because this controls the position of the pin along the Y axis. Um, so I’m gonna recommend taking these two out here. These adjust the height of the pin. Um, and that’s really easy to accommodate for, whereas here, um, it takes a little extra work or an extra step in order to make this become parallel once again with the machine. So let’s remove those two.”
37:17-41:13: “Okay. So we’re just gonna take this whole assembly. It still has these, these tubes, these air tubes connected to it. Um, we’re just gonna tuck this right down below during our surfacing process, and then we can reattach that back to that plate after we’re done with the sequence. So once you removed all three pins, there’s two of ’em along the, um, length of the machine and there’s gonna be one close to the tool rack, uh, that you need to remove as well. But once we’ve removed all three of those, we have access to the surface without the risk of hitting anything. Uh, we need to place x, y, z zero, just like we did in, you know, setting up our horizontal part earlier on. Mm-hmm. And we placed XY zero here in the bottom left corner of the entire table with the Z zero on the top. Okay? Okay. Now, the programs that we provide, um, they’re on our website for you to download. Um, but you can, and they’re also part of the resources that we send our customers, but those files, it’s gonna take that surface and cutter and only cut about 15 thousandths of an inch deep and surface the whole table. Okay? Okay. That doesn’t mean that the entire safe table will be surfaced. Like if I take my smart tool pad and say zero out right here and it touches off, and then it starts surfacing 15,000 from that point, it doesn’t mean that somewhere else on the table the, it might not be dishing lower than 15,000. Right. So what I like to do is after I’ve zeroed out and actually start the program and let it start surfacing, I let it surface about oh four to six inches of table here. Um, that’s close to the front and I see down the entire length if there’s any areas that aren’t being surfaced, you’ll see kind of these dishes mm-hmm. That are, don’t have any cut marks attached to them. If that’s the case, we need to lower our Z axis. We’ll stop the program and lower our Z axis, an additional 15,000. So that’s why I let it surface about four to six inches enough to place my smart tool pad in the new surfaced area. Okay? Okay. Um, so I’ll stop the program, we’ll replace our smart tool pad on the new surfaced area here if by chance, again, it’s not surfacing along the entire length. And then we’ll retouch off with the new Z axis Z zero restart the program. It’s gonna resurface this area that was just cut, but 15 thousand’s lower. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I just repeat that process until you can see it cutting down the entire length of the table. This table, for example, I had to, um, start the program on the third time is when it was cutting deep enough. So I had to do a smart tool touch off two extra times than my beginning one. Okay. To make sure that this, this one, um, works specifically. So each machine’s gonna be slightly different, um, when it comes to, again, how much the table is deflecting from being attached to the frame. But, uh, just use that technique to surface your base table and everything will be kosher. Alright? Okay. And the cool thing about this is once the table is surfaced, it is now perfectly flat to the machine in your shop and we can now confidently reattach table fixtures here and they’re also gonna be flat to the machine. Okay? That’s right. So you’re gonna have a, a really accurate, um, good starting, uh, plate or a foundation. That’s why we call it the base table to make it so everything else will create accurate components for you. Okay. So now let’s go to the first table fixture that I like to show and at least start with. It’s very forgiving. It’s called a spoil board table. So we can attach it to the base table in lots of different methods. We could use double stick tape, we saw that earlier. We can use the whole pattern. Um, the whole pattern is gonna make, make it so you can get the tables on and off quickly. Mm-hmm. Uh, versus double stick tape, just a little more time consuming. Yeah. Um, so let’s actually apply a spoil board surface to this and show, um, different ways of holding parts down and at least discussing, um, other ways that are even out there as third party sources to hold parts down to our spoil board surface.”
41:16-45:01: “So here we have a, a four foot wide, uh, sheet of MDF. Um, MDF is a great material to be used as a spoil board surface, and you’re gonna see why, um, as well in a vacuum table setting. But for this, um, we can use a variety of materials as a, as a spoil board surface, anything that we don’t mind beating up. Mm-hmm. Okay. Accidentally destroying the cutter, running into it. We don’t care about these surfaces all that much. Um, they’re pretty inexpensive materials and they’re easy and fast to replace. Yeah. Okay. Now I don’t have this tied directly down to the base table, uh, whereas if I was to re go back to this table fixture over and over again, I would want to match the whole pattern of what’s in the base table and we would simply drill and counter sync those and then we can bolt that in place. Um, we have those files to do that if, if you want to create a spoil board table to go directly to your base table. However, we have other tables that we’re going to be putting on here that we already have pre-made with the whole pattern, such as the slotted t track table, as well as the vacuum grid and spoil board table surface for a vacuum fixture. Okay. All right. So we’ll show all of them, but this one we’ll just do a, uh, a floating demonstration as if it was attached to the machine. Okay. So common ways to attach parts if I wanted to take a blank here and attach this to that surface. Okay. There’s a couple of methods. We used one earlier on, right? Mm-hmm. The first method that you tried double, double dictate. That’s right. Exactly. And it worked great, right? It just takes a little bit to get that tape on and off. Mm-hmm. Okay. It’s not the most effective way, uh, and the fastest way of getting parts on and off the machine, but it is a, a simple method if you just need to do one off or prototype your components without having to set up an entire table fixture to do so. Yeah. Okay. So double stick tape. And again, this is pretty straightforward. We can stick a little slap on here and then peel off the backer. This does require a flat, smooth surface, a material to material in order to work. And, but that’s, that’s all it takes. Now, there is a, another type of double stick tape that you can make yourself, you can get double stick tape. This one here is on our resource list and it’s about seven thousandths of an inch thick. Mm-hmm. And so it doesn’t, um, it’s not very, it’s not gonna change your z axis all too much. Um, unlike carpet tape or things that have, you know, really thick spongy surfaces. Yeah. Um, and so there’s a couple of ’em out there, but you could spend as much as even 30, 35 bucks per roll on certain quality of tape. So there are cheaper methods and, and other options that have been around for a long time. Why don’t you pass me that bloop blue tape right here. And so this is just, you know, good quality blue painter’s tape and you can make your own double double stick tape with just simple ca ca glue, super glue. So if you put a, a string of tape here, make sure it actually sits perfectly flat. And then you put a, a piece of tape here. Same thing. Make sure it sat, um, sat perfectly flat. We could put super glue here, super glue here. And then if you use your activator spray, you can just push those two together. The activator will make everything dry and, you know, usually less than 10 seconds. And this can now be holding parts down. I do that on multiple ends of the part, but this is now a way of making your own double stick tape and it works great. And this easily, again, peels off just like any, any other double stick tape. Perfect. Okay. So it’s a, a valid method. They use it a lot in template work, um, for, you know, router tables, trim routers, that type of thing. Um, when you have a template you need to put over a part and you wanna hold something down as you’re using a router.”
Spoil Board & T-Slot Tables (45:00-60:00)
44:58-56:39: “and you wanna hold something down as you’re using a router. But it also works great for even spoil board surfaces on the CNC. Okay. So double stick tape, don’t overlook it. It’s a, a great thing to get started with as you experienced. Yeah. Okay. Uh, the other one, which is a very common method of holding parts down to a spoil board is simply screwing it down. And so if you just grab some screws Yep. Just make sure they’re long enough. So I like to make sure the screw goes into my spoil board at least a half of an inch, but you don’t want to go too far or you start running into your base table. Mm-hmm. Right. So I have three quarter inch spoil board surface here, um, that I need to work with the, I mean, again, it’s a simple method to just simply pilot hole and, and put your screws in to hold your parts down. It works. However, there’s two disadvantages to it, is that one, you have to make sure your part is oversized so that your cutters aren’t gonna run into those screws. Okay. ’cause if they do, you know, chew up your cutters, no fun. And second part is the more holes you put into your table with your screws, it’s gonna keep bubbling up those surfaces and you’re either gonna have to resurface this table or, or sand it flat or whatever it is. ’cause this is gonna become uneven mm-hmm. And not want to sit flat, which can throw off your z axis parameters, um, for your smart tool and your part. Okay. Okay. So screws are an option. Um, I haven’t used them in a long time, but for getting started, if you don’t have any table fixtures already, um, great option to begin with along with double stick tape. Okay. Uh, a third option that we’ve seen is called a composite nail gun. Okay. And it’s a, it’s a specialized nail gun that shoots really plastic nails. And I’ve seen those, um, go through two inch hardwood and pinning parts right to table surfaces. Um, the cool part about them, how they’re being used on a, on a CNC table is you can just pin a part in place with the, with the plastic finish nails and it’s perfect for cutting because if the cutter hits the nail, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t ruin any ruin anything. But how do you get the blank off the table? Well, you with these, because they’re, they’re plastic when you use ’em, you just take a rubber mallet and you smack the end of your part and it shears all the nails. Huh. And it just leaves ’em all flushed to the table here. And if by chance you have any nubs or anything sticking up, you can always come and resurface or resand those down just like the screw holes. Okay. And so that’s another alternative to quickly just slap a part in place with a nail gun, but it’s the composite nail so you don’t have to worry about damaging your cutters. So we have the resources, um, to show that if people are interested in using that for their spoil board tables, uh, fixtures, uh, I’ve seen that being used even for holding down four by eight sheets. Um, they don’t have, they don’t produce a lot of sheet processing in their shot. They were a stair manufacturer, but occasionally they had to do a four by eight sheet. And so they just use the composite nail gun to, to hold down their sheets. It’s a interesting method. Could be, um, something that anyone could look into depending on, again, what they are producing and how often they need to be holding down parts that they simply need to shear. Okay. Okay. Alright. So that is the three most common ways of holding down a component to a spoil board. Surface double stick tape, screws and nails is really what it is. There’s other alternatives I’ve seen. Um, people try like hot glue guns, that type of thing. Mm-hmm. But it tends to mess with the z axis too much. Um, and so I haven’t found it as a reliable source, even though I’ve seen it work. I, I usually don’t recommend it. These are the ones that at least are still reliable and are easy to get your hands on and you can start using immediately without building an entire table fixture. Okay. Okay. Now one of the things that we have done for all of our customers, I’ve, I’ve mentioned that we have table files. Yeah. Right? And so we have the table files to produce the base table, the spoil board table, vacuum grid tables, t slot tables, all the tables. We have all the files. And so you can use your machine to build these tables. So it’s not like you have to start from square one on trying to design these platforms Okay. Or fixtures themselves. Uh, a lot of the machines, again, are gonna be coming with tables already and if you damage those by chance, you need to replace them, you can always come back and make new ones. And so it, it’s gonna happen eventually as you chew things up. You can already see some of the cutting marks taking place as different parts and sheets are being, um, applied to that surface. Um, and eventually it’s just gonna need to be replaced. Okay. So, uh, don’t be shy, uh, about using the files that we have. There are great starting point and can get you in the right direction immediately without having to take the time of trying to figure out how to do it all by yourself. Alright? Okay. Um, we’ll show you where those resources files are located on our website@legacywoodworking.com. Okay. Okay. So that is the first type of tables called a spoil board table. So this is a T track table and it has the same hole pattern as our base table. So we can tie it right, right down and immediately start using it. Let’s just do that just for the fun of it. All right. So if we took the same bolt pattern or the same bolts that you use to detach your vacuum grid table, um, one note on tightening the screws is I actually only use either a hand driver or a driver that has a clutch that I can control to make sure the clutch is very soft. If you use a hammer driver to try to drive the screws in, um, it can actually pull out the inserts. So when tightening down these screws, always use a hand, um, either a, a hand driver or a clutch driver. Yep. And putting a washer in there will make us so the tables last as long as possible as we apply that force from the screws. Beautiful. Okay. So, so easy that is to attach and this is now a, um, a t slot table that we can use. Now we have the same advantages as the spoil board table because this is made out of MDF as well. All you can make this out of MDF out of, um, birch plywood, any type of material really. Um, this is just an example of MDF and you can see that we’ve cut through parts and into the table surface and it’s really no big deal because again, this table fixture is also very easy and fast to replace and still forgiving, which is the advantage of a spoil board surface. Okay. All right. There’s different types of t um, t slot tables known as t track tables. Mm-hmm. And they actually use aluminum t tracks that they embed the t tracks right into the table itself. However, if your cutter were to cut too deep in, into those aluminum t tracks, you can damage those. Mm-hmm. They’re a lot more expensive and a lot more time consuming to build those type of table fixtures. Um, a lot of the time you can only do the, the t track tables in one direction or here we’re going in both directions ’cause we’re actually cutting the t slots directly into the material of the table itself. Okay. Okay. So the advantage of a t track table is you can apply more force to your clamping because you know it’s a, a harder track. Yeah. Whereas here, eventually this material is going to start to compress if we apply too much force. Um, but if you go to a, a higher quality material, like a, let’s say a high quality plywood mm-hmm. Then now you’re starting to get the best, best of both worlds again because you have something that’s still forgiving, but a denser material where you can apply stronger forces to your clamps. Okay. Um, so here, let’s, let’s show you how how this works is with a TAT slot, we can apply hardware quickly and accurately to really any position we want on the machine. Uh, but we still can do the same things. I could put double stick tape wood screws if I wanted to, and still the same fixtures that we were talking about on a spoil board surface if we want to. So adding here, one of the table fixtures that we like to use is legacy own low pro clamps. Okay. We’ve had some variations, um, throughout the years we’ve had the red clamps, but now we’re selling ’em as just the silver. Yeah. It’s just the aluminum with a kind of a polish on it. Okay. Uh, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it has a more of a silver aluminum finish on it. Um, these are just like the ink or toe clips where they’re made out of aluminum. So if you by chance we’re running into ’em, they’re a little bit, uh, more forgiving on your cutters. But let’s show you how easy these are to use. Okay. And the reason why, uh, legacy created these specific clamps is because the other side clamps in the industry that we played with, almost all of them had the same problem and you had to do weird things to, to overcome the issue. But what they did is as they were applying a sideward sideways force, it would lift the part up as it was clamping from the side. Oh, okay. And so we had to overcome that in some way. Sometimes we’d put a, a buffer part between here and we could hammer this down as this buffer part would then lift up instead. Mm-hmm. Um, but instead of working around Andy, our engineer, he’s the one that created these. So these are a side clamp that have a downward slope as pressing sideways to help reduce or eliminate the lifting of the parts as we’re clamping from the side. Alright. Okay. So there’s the clamp and then we have the backers that go with it. So we can easily take this with the whoop the sliding hardware. We’re gonna slide this right into those T slots Maybe. There we go. Mm-hmm. Okay. And now we have something that can stop against those, right? Oh yeah. And we have the, there it is, the T allen wrench that comes with a machine. And so if we put these close to the slots that we wanna put the clamps on, we can just put pressure against those and that will square them up in the slot. Yeah. And then you just tighten these down just like so, so now I can go in the same spot every single time and that makes it so at least this edge here is always parallel and the same location, regardless of my blank size, we created a fence. Mm-hmm. Right. Uh, you can repeat the same thing on this end. Technically you could bring this up and, you know, stop it against the edge. That’s one way I could draw a line on my table. It’s another way. Um, I’ve even seen people take, um, secondary clamps or just backers and they’ll just put it right on the end there. Tighten this one down. There we go. And now that can go into the same spot every single time. ’cause you have a stopping point. So now XY zero could be here. Um, and that’s gonna be the same for all different size components on this type of table fixture. Okay. Okay. So pretty easy to set up fences and stopping components. And then all we gotta do is set up the clamps themselves. And so the clamps is the same hardware, except you’re gonna have two screws instead of just one going down into the, the slot. You have that one, but you’re gonna gonna also have a second screw going from side to side, pushing the clamp forward and back. Okay. So what I like to do is I’ll back off that screw until it’s just above this screw so I can get access to it. And then we’ll slide this in place. Do the same thing for another one here.”
56:44-56:48: “Just back that one out, just a smidge slide this one in place.”
56:52-56:59: “Okay. And then I’ll apply again, just a little force with my fingers here, my hands, and then tie this to my table surface.”
57:04-1:00:02: “Same thing here. And now if you were to take this and loosen up these screws, okay. You can pull those clamps back and now we can get parts in and out of the machine really fast. Okay. Okay. So you’ve created this vice, this clamping system. Um, and these are why they’re called low, low pros is because they have a low profile edge to them. They’re not hanging over or creating high areas where they’re impeding the cutting zone all too much. Mm-hmm. Um, they still are obviously on the side, so you gotta be aware of that on your, on your tool pass. But it’s really simple. You just take this and you, you’ll feel it make contact and I like to usually just put a little downward pressure just in case, but downward pressure as I do about a half to sometimes full turn, you’ll, you’ll fill it compressed. Same thing with this end here and there. It starts to make contact. I just go half turn, possibly a full turn. Yep. Making, making contact and now we have a part in play, um, that we can machine and do whatever detail we want to. Alright. Okay. So this is a really a go-to system, uh, using side clamps like this use, uh, with the t-slot table. And again, you can see how much faster it is to get parts in and out when we have a fixture like that. And they always go in the exact same location. So we only have to set up our offset once one time. Yep. And now we’re good to go. Perfect. So that is the, the t slot table, the other type of table, um, fixture that we can use with this. Okay. So now this is loose. Um, are even other clamps that you can even make. So this is a, another form of a side clamp. Um, all this is, I guess a proper tomb would be a, a cam clamp or an iso clamp. It’s literally just a circle with a 90 degree V cutter cutting the circle. And a I left about an eighth of an inch on the rim for a a quarter inch cutter to cut out. Mm-hmm. But you drill a hole down the center of it. Off center. Okay. Okay. So now when you, you place this here and I’m not using the right diameter bolt ’cause this is a quarter, quarter inch hole I have here and I put a 10 32 bolt in there. So I mean it will, it will demonstrate what we’re trying to do, but it’s not the proper size of, of bolt to do this. And then I marked here the shortest edge from the hole. Okay. So over here is the longest edge over here is the shortest edge, right? So if you take this and then you snug it up, up against that, this edge of the part so that you can get, you know, your, your parts in and out. Mm-hmm. Then you take this and all you gotta do is twist and it starts biting against that edge, holding that really snug. And that’s one clamp holding that that tight. Okay. Okay. It’s really cool. And that’s just one and I only turned not even a quarter turn. Right? Not even a quarter turn. Yeah. So take that and I could just keep cranking and keep putting more force. Obviously I could add more clamps if I wanted to. Mm-hmm. So this is really cool. Um, the other one we have”
Vacuum Table Setup (60:00-76:00)
59:59-1:01:48: “So this is really cool. Um, the other one we have with this is the material if you accidentally cut into it like you see here, big deal. Yeah. Right. It’s wood. So this is just made out of bulk of birch ply. So I can back that off and get my part in and out now. Okay. Um, and that’s just a simple clamp that people can make themselves. Technically it’s called a cam clamp just using, uh, circles as general shapes with a V cutter. Yeah. Cool concept. So the, this is applying the same type of advantage as your, uh, low pro clamps. Low, low pro clamps are gonna be able to apply, um, a bit more force because we’re using the threaded, you know, leverage. Yeah. In order to keep, keep pushing, you can apply enough force to where eventually the hardware will start sliding, um, underneath and it’s actually shearing the material away from itself. Um, that’s, uh, that’s how much you can apply here if you ever wanted to. But, uh, that’s the t slot table in a nutshell. We can do all the same clamping fixtures as the spoil board table, but now we can add hardware to this. Okay. Okay. Now there is, now that we’ve done the low pro clamps, one thing you can do with, uh, low pro clamps even to a spoil board surface is you can attach these to your spoil board surfaces just with screws. Oh. If you actually look at these, they’ll take out the hardware. They have a hole size, which is about the right size for a wood screw and they’re countersunk. Oh. So you can use a wood screw, you can use a wood screw in there and it’s going to, you can drive that right into any surface you want. And now you’ve applied a fence and hardware to a spoil board surface using, again, same method of a wood screw. Okay. Okay. So yeah, pretty sweet stuff.”
1:01:54-1:02:34: “Okay, let’s show you our last table fixture. That’s really common to use for customers and that is the vacuum table. Now to do that, we’re gonna need to detach this table fixture and reattach the vacuum table. Yeah. The vacuum grid table and the spoil board. And then we’ll show how that works. It’s really sweet. Just as a, a tip is whenever you’re switching out tables back and forth, is you want to keep the surfaces clean. If by chance there’s any debris or sawdust in between the tables, that’s gonna throw your z axis off in certain areas. So I always like to take a vacuum or a blower and just clean it off between my table fixtures. Okay.”
1:02:41-1:07:47: “And you saw there, there was just kind of a little bit of debris that needed to be removed. Okay. So let’s grab that. The uh, white grid table made out of melamine. Okay. And that’s gonna line up with the exact same hole pattern. Good? Yep. Okay. Now let’s talk about this table right now. ’cause this is, this is very specific to hold down parts using air suction, right? Mm-hmm. We see this port and there’s four of those Mixing. Um, we call those zones. Okay? Okay. So this is zone one and from the front of the machine where you’re standing zone 1, 2, 3, and four. And we can control that in the interface of which one is active or gonna be used during the vacuum procedure. Uh, but that’s gonna be attached to a separate vacuum blower directly under the machine. Okay. So we don’t have to have any third party plumbing or anything to another vacuum system. It’s all direct connected, right. And integrated into the, into the machine itself. Um, and so we’re gonna get, um, all together, we’re gonna use all four to do a full four by eight sheet or technically you could zone it out to where you do a, a smaller section and just use one vacuum zone. Okay? Okay. Whatever you like to use. Now with that, um, you can make this table, the grid table out of a variety of material, right? Mm-hmm. We provide right now the Melanie material just ’cause it’s, it’s fast and easy to make for people and for them to replace. If by chance they damage this, you can invest in, in more expensive material and in more expensive tables like um, phenolic table surfaces. Um, if you’re getting into just, you know, robust production environments for for vacuum tables. Yeah. Um, but for this it’s great to get started with. Okay. Now with this you have the grid and the purpose of that is to help disperse the air across the entire surface instead of just being focused at a single point. Mm-hmm. Okay. So theoretically the more grids that you have cut, the easier it is for the air to get to all areas of the, of the sheet. Yeah. The other thing we have is at the edge of our grid, we have this seal and that’s going to trap the air from, again, from escaping out out the edges. Um, but the nice thing about this particular system is it doesn’t require a 100% seal, like a vacuum pump. Mm-hmm. A vacuum pump, um, would require 100% seal or the entire system fails. This is not the case. This is called a vacuum blower. Yeah. Um, and if there’s air that’s leaking throughout the system, it’s still gonna function. We’re gonna see that take place. Um, and will explain exactly what, where the air could be escaping in certain situations. Okay. Um, so with this, that is gonna help contain the air where it should be pulled as the air is being sucked down into this port Right now we’re gonna put another table on top of this. That’s this MDF table here called a spoil board surface. Again, um, the reason we use materials like MDF is ’cause this is porous enough that air can suck through that material and hold down another sheet on top of it. Oh, okay. It’s uh, the first time someone told me that I kind of called BS until I saw it and then it’s actually really, really interesting to see it take place. So this is eye-opening if you haven’t seen this already. Um, to see, uh, to see how it’s holding parts by sucking air through the MDF. Uh, you can get other materials like L-D-L-D-F. Mm-hmm Okay. Low density fiber board. Um, but it’s not something you can just pick up at like Home Depot. Yeah. You have to go special from material suppliers and then they can get you some. But this is just MDF that we’re gonna be using today and you’ll be able to see it’ll hold down an entire sheet. No problem. Okay. Okay. So we’re gonna put on another spoil board surface here. Um, and we’re gonna tie it down to another whole pattern, uh, to ensure that it compresses the seal, you know, nice and flat for us and yeah. Nope, that’s all we have to do. And then we’ll have an entire vacuum table system completely set up ready for a sheet to be loaded on top of it. Okay. Alright. So let’s grab that secondary spoil board table. Beautiful.”
1:07:52-1:09:21: “Okay, now we have it. So we have an entire uh, four by eight table built with that same structure. So you have a base table that’s been surfaced. We have a vacuum grid table and then we also have the spoil board table surface ready to be used. Now let’s experiment with this to see what its limitations are. ’cause this only works for holding one type of material and it’s, we call it sheet goods. Okay? Mm-hmm. So it’s really, you could say manmade material. Um, technically if you had enough air flowing through this, you could hold down even hardwood components, but this isn’t the proper type of fixture in order to do that. Mm-hmm. They have other types of vacuum hold down fixtures in order to hold down hardware components. But this one we’re gonna be holding down sheets. Okay. So let’s play with our size limitation where you can feel where, okay, it’s just not enough to hold down parts and you’re gonna be able to ex um, experience. One thing that’s gonna happen is the more cut grooves there are in the table surface, the less hold down force you technically have. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so let’s, uh, let’s play with that. So we could grab for example, the one of the MDF blanks that we were using earlier, right. That you were learning to cut with. You’ll be able to feel it actually you’re gonna take that double stick tape off, but you’re gonna be able to feel it, kind of want to grab, but it won’t be enough to hold that in place. Mm-hmm. Let’s grab some other sheets and we can line that up anywhere we want. I’m just throwing it on there for now and go ahead and do all of them.”
1:09:48-1:16:02: “So you just experienced air coming through a spoil board surface, sucking down other parts on top of it. Mm-hmm. And again, first time blew my mind away. Yeah. It’s crazy. It’s pretty sweet. Um, and we can see that there was, you could feel it, it wanted to grip this but it just wasn’t enough surface. Yeah. Not the friction in order to hold it in place. Right. Same with that melamine piece on the other side. However, on this two foot by four foot it was holding it all day rock solid. Right. Pretty sweet. And that just scales, it gets stronger and stronger with more surface. So a four by four, four by eight sheet you put on here. Plenty of hold down power for producing sheet processes. Now the cool thing about this is that you can still cut out small components even out of a larger sheet and you’re still gonna be able to get hold down forces all day. So I could take this small part and even smaller parts if I wanted and I could mess these out of the middle of this sheet and it will still hold all those together. What it naturally does is even with your dust collection on, on thicker material and actually compacts the dust in the bottom section of those grooves Okay. And it helps kind of clamp and hold those parts in place. Interesting. Yeah. It’s pretty sweet how it works like that. So that’s a even uh, even though we have a big sheet and small parts, we can still work with either size when it comes to cutting them out of a larger sheet. Okay. Uh, if we try to do this with hardwood, I haven’t been able to really get it stick that much. Same thing, it’s kinda like this, you feel it want to mm-hmm. But if the board is twisting or bowing at all, then it’s just not making enough surface contact to create that friction. Mm-hmm. So, um, different fixtures and that’s why we have the others. We have the slotted or you know, the t slot tables are slotted t tracks as well as the spoil board tables where we can apply, you know, other types of fixtures in order to accommodate other materials that may not work on certain things. Mm-hmm. So this isn’t a end all be all table fixture. This is a sheet processing center for vacuum and we have those pins that we can use to, you know, locate those at any given time. Mm-hmm. But uh, we have other table fixtures when we need them. A lot for hardwood components or smaller components that are, are tricky to hold down. Yeah. Then we can use things like clamps mm-hmm. Double stick tape and other sorts of means that you want to come up with. But those are the three areas. You have the spoil board table, you have a slot, a T slot table, and you have a vacuum table to give you the biggest variety of hold down fixtures that you can get on a CNC machine. Mm-hmm. And the ability to be able to switch out between them so you’re not locked into one option. So gives you maximum versatility on your projects and your materials and part sizes on what you can handle in a single platform. Yeah. That’s awesome. It’s pretty sweet. Okay. You got any questions or ideas or concepts for me that after our little demonstration here, love to see what you’re, if you have anything that we can add? Well, I’ve seen before, um, and I I think you’ve done a couple where they’re called storyboards. Yes. Um, where you create just, you take an MDF sheet and then you part bolt down all the fixtures. That’s right. And that can help create all of the parts for a single job. Is that something that we can do here on the cnc? Yes, absolutely. And so depending on how you want to hold down that storyboard, so like you said, a storyboard is just a, a part or a sheet. This is a storyboard as an example for produ for producing the rocking chair. Okay. So they did a pile of, of rocking chairs. Mm-hmm. Uh, last year they had a number of the live workshops, right? Yeah. And they had each one of these storyboards per machine that they were using. Okay. Some machines were holding it down by just screwing it down to a spoil board surface. Mm-hmm. Some of ’em were in a T slot table and they were holding this actual board with the low pro clamps, um, double stick tape. I mean there’s all sorts of different options of holding this down just like what we covered. But yes, this storyboard, because this was specifically made to accommodate all the different blank sizes for an entire project. Um, if you’re gonna come back and build that project over and over again, a storyboard definitely takes you to the next level of production, right? Yeah. To where you only have to set up one XY zero, let’s say this was again placed in here down the length and that was vacuum sucked right there, right? Mm-hmm. Lined up with our table. Um, these are the actual fences that get put in here to accommodate different parts sizes and they just clamp them in place along this. And so they set up one XY zero and it accommodates all the different blank sizes. Oh, that’s awesome. It is. It’s pretty sweet. And so they’re taking advantage of the same thing we did here on the vertical table, right? Mm-hmm. Where you said the bottom right corner is your X, Y, Z ’cause we can now use that for all different parts sizes in the same fixture. Yeah. And that’s technically a, a, a type of storyboard that you’re talking about. Okay. Here this is just a custom one that’s built for a very specific project. Nice. Yeah. So yeah, storyboards are pretty sweet when you start getting into production not required for projects. Mm-hmm. But, uh, when you’re start trying to take your fixtures to the next level, that is, that’s what you’re going to the storyboard fixtures. Okay. So on top of the vacuum button that we can activate, we also have the zones. So you have Z one, Z two, Z three, and Z four to turn on those active zones. 1, 2, 3, 4 that we mentioned earlier. Right now you can see all of ’em here are lit up. So they’re all active, but you can just click on ’em and it will turn them on and off. Right. Just a toggle for those zones. There’s extra zones here for five and six because of our larger machines, our five by 10 and even 12 foot length machines, they have a fifth and a sixth zone. Mm-hmm. Um, but the four by eights, they’ll have four zones. So depending on your machine size, for example, a maverick four by four will have two zones. Okay. So depending on your machine size will determine how many zones that’s automatically gonna be incorporated into the platform. But it’s as easy as clicking those buttons to activate ’em”
