I have a 3D printed version that work great. However, I used 1/4-20 bolts to make them compatible with my t-slot. I also have a grid of 1/4-20 inserts that I use to make corresponding grids on jigs that I fasten to my spoil board. I do not mount them in V-slot. But I bet you could modify them. Here is a photo of what I am using. Sadly, I spent about two hours looking on thingiverse.com and other sites trying to find the stl file and could not. I printed them about two years ago. I have all my bolts pointing down and either fastening to an insert or a t slot nut. I have two sizes but use the longest ones the most because between the inserts and the t-slot, I can reach anywhere. I do not have a picture handy of the smaller ones. If interested, I could take one. What I like about these clamps is they put both side and down pressure on the stock piece.
That would be interesting to see for sure but I do not have a 3d printer to make any LOL. That is awesome though. Are there any clamp products anyone is using that they would suggest? I am curently using dowels, tape/super glue, double sided tape and even screws at times
I use custom hold downs that I made. See photo. These are walnut, about 3/8” thick. Use them with 1/4-20 nylon bolts into threaded inserts. I also use some home-made cam clamps when I need to clamp from the side. It all works great. Let me know if you want more info. Happy to share. Thx, rink.
Dang Rink….just seeing that spoilboard made me jealous then I see the clamps…wow very nice. I am not sure I even know what to ask you lol
I guess how on earth did you make the spoilboard first of all…and are the holes all threaded? If so how? Man I know I sound like a noob right now haha
I also use some similar to Rink that I made out of oak. These are held down the same was as those mentioned above. For one sided 3D carves, I have a board that I screw in from the backside -- using short screws -- into the stock piece in an area I know will not get cut into. This is then bolted down to the insert hole pattern in my spoil board. I only use the bolt holes near the object. No need to use all the holes. It is very secure this way. This is one of my favorite ways to secure something down on a long one- sided 3D carve. I do not need tabs then and I can do the profile pass right after roughing to get the waste out of the way. Here is the jig with hole pattern. I counter sunk all the holes on the underside for the work holding screws. I just put the work piece where two holes will work for that particular job. Circled are the screws going from the underside into the work piece. Here it is in action after roughing and profile cuts were completed.
Every other hole you see on the strips between the T-track are used to screw those pieces to the layer beneath that the Ttrack is attached to. The other holes have the threaded inserts like these: Amazon.com They are only on about half the spoil board because I ran out. I have not needed any more yet so some holes towards the back are empty dust storage holes. I drew up the hole pattern in Fusion 360 so I could just keep drawing new jigs according to that pattern. That way they will always perfectly align.
Well I am mind blown. wow that is very cool. I am going to have to stare at this for a while to try and figure it out. Hate to admit it but this is very much above my understanding at the moment. Feels like I need a course lol That 3d looks like R2...pretty cool man.
Thanks. I made a series of Star Wars Tikis for the IT people that work with me. They are Hex 3D models. He does a lot of SciFi 3D models. As for a board like I made, you could just draw a rectangle and put a grid pattern on it. Cut the rectangle and grid the drill the hole pattern into your spoil board using the same file, just eliminate the profile cut. You would have to drill the spoil board holes slightly larger. If I remember right, I made my grid of holes with a quarter inch hole for the board and around each quarter inch hole I drew a 27/64 hole. I selected the 1/4" holes in my CAM software for the board, and the 27/64 (I use mm so 10.5mm) for the spoil board. I made sure the inserts were screwed in to at least the depth of the T-track so i could resurface my spoil board a few times before replacing it.
For me, pretty much the same as Craig. I drew up the CNC base including spoilboard in Fusion360. The LEAD machine uses v-slot for the base, so I got some 30mm long t-bolts to fit those slots and bolted some screwing blocks to the sides of the base extrusions. Then I screwed a single big piece of 1/2” MDF to those screw strips from the top. That way, I should never have to lift the machine to replace that board. I installed t-track about every 5” or so on top of the 1/2”MDF. Then I put strips of 3/4”MDF between the t-tracks. I screwed that down with drywall screws, countersunk by about 7mm. Then I drew up the spoil board in VCarve Pro, so I could lay out all the holes for threaded inserts, avoiding the drywall screws and t-track. I ran a job to pocket out the holes for threaded inserts. Then I screwed in EZ-Lok threaded inserts, 1/4”-20. Be sure to use the coarse threaded ones in MDF, got em on AMZ. My grid lines and threaded insert holes are all on 40mm centers. Altogether, there are about 600 threaded insert holes in my design. I only pocketed and installed threaded inserts in some of them for now, where I’m most likely to need them. With the design saved in VCarve, I can pocket and thread additional ones as needed, easy as pie. Also, having the design in VCarve allows me to make fixtures with bolt holes that perfectly fit the spoil board. If I were doing it over, I would leave out the t-track and the 1/2" MDF. I'd go with a single piece of 3/4" MDF with threaded inserts. That would gain me 1/2" of z-axis clearance. And now that I'm using the machine, I don't think I'll need the t-track. I’ll try to add some pics of the build process so you can see the guts of it. Thx, rink.
Craig and Rink Wow guys...nice work. Lot for me to work through for sure and thanks a ton for the pics Rink. I am very visual so that is helping me a ton.
None of my design is what you’d call original. I got the ideas from Craig and others here on the forum. This is a great forum with lots of smart and helpful people.
Gee…I wonder who was milling up some slot-together reindeer when they didn’t get the Z zeroed out correctly? Hahaha.
Uh oh…. I seem to have an issue on the far right section of my bed. The mdf/right side rail it is secured to seem to be bowing or something as it is higher than the other two sections. No idea what is going on but me and this CNC have not been on the same page. Honestly getting pretty frustrated.
