Here’s a great video from the Eclectic Angler showing his fixture for making the side plates for a fly fishing reel:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzeKlBxMA3k[/youtube]
Love the use of the toggles to make it easy to pop a new workpiece into place. Note also the pins that position the workpiece at the top and left before the toggles are applied. Ideally, you’d like to use a combination of pins that does not “over constrain” the part. Ideally, that would mean two pins at the top and one on the left.
Why?
Because the three pins at the top over constrain the top edge. It only takes 2 points to identify a line, and he’s using three. Two points at the top and one point on the left would be the ideal way to build a fixture like this, but his is working extremely well as you’ll see from the video.
Check out the Eclectic Angler’s site: some very nice reels if you like fly fishing. He even sells books if you have a desire to build your own reels.
Disclosure: Michael is a G-Wizard customer.
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Bob is responsible for the development and implementation of the popular G-Wizard CNC Software. Bob is also the founder of CNCCookbook, the largest CNC-related blog on the Internet.
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His feeds and speeds look really good.
Hi Bob, thanks for sharing my video. Good point on the # of pins to locate the part. I use this same fixture to mill 4 x 9 and 4 x 6in sheets and thought I needed to have a set of pins for each. It also turns out that my stock is cut from large sheets and is rarely perfect sized or straight edged. Having defined a line on both edges helps me finagle the sheet into the right location. You might notice that there is very little waste material left over on the long ends, so I need to be able to move the sheet around just a bit sometimes. This is primarily because I am trying to maximize material usage cutting down 2′ x 4′ sheets of aluminum and brass.
BTW, G-Wizard was great for helping me optimize my speeds and feeds. Before using it, this part took over 25 minutes to mill. I used the old, “adjust something and see what happens” method and broke a lot of bits as I approached the limit. Once I could actually play with the parameters in G-Wizard I discovered that spindle speed was critical. I had to cut 25 sets of this part (plus another 25 of the two rings that complete the reel frame) over the weekend. The optimized parameters literally saved me 7 hours of milling time for this run! I know that you can calculate speeds & feeds using other simple tools and even formulas in books, but for me the “what if” aspect of G-Wizard really helped me understand what I needed to do to optimize the cut. I should also add, I have cut over 1500 parts since using G-Wizard and have not broken a single .125″ endmill. I would have broken at least 2 before.
cheers,
Michael
Michael, thank you for the kind words.
It makes good sense to use multiple pins to accomodate different workpiece sizes–thanks for clarifying that decision.
Appreciate the information Bob. I love seeing all the craftsmanship that goes into making our fishing devices. :TightLines