Suggestions needed for another wacky project...holding zillions of little parts w/o vacuum...

[kfitzgerald@graphicmetalsinc.com]

Creativity needed-

Problem: hold down small blocks of wood (4 sizes; range from 2 5/8" - 3 7/8", thickness ranges from 7/8" - 1") that are "rosette" blanks. The boss wants these held in large groups, but will settle for groups of 9-16 to start. Cutters will be 1/2" dia. ball end mill and 60 degree V bit.

Constraints:
1. We have no vacuum system at this time.
2. We have no clamps.
3. We can screw things down to the table.
4. We have lots of wood scraps.
5. We have no money.
6. We have no time.

Regards,

Kevin Fitz-Gerald
Project Manager

Graphic Metals, Inc.
P.O. Box 31
715 East Perry Street
Bryan, OH 43506
Voice 419-636-5757
Fax 419-636-6404

kfitzgerald@graphicmetalsinc.com (mailto:kfitzgerald@graphicmetalsinc.com)

[gerald_d]

First, find the guy that cut the planks into small blocks BEFORE giving them to you - and fire him. Then, dump the small blocks and go and buy new planks (un-planed). Do all the routing work. Then re-hire the guy (who by now has realised the error of his ways) and get him to shove the planks through a thickness planer.


Oh, you don't have a thickness planer either?

[graphicmetals]

One more constraint:
(It will help to get an image of Dilbert burned into your mind's eye for this. Also, it would help to wrap your head in duct tape so that when it explodes, you will not lose any pieces)

#1 Prime Directive:
One must never do things in a new way. We must always do things the same way we always have. Logic and common sense must never be used.

We have a complete woodworking facility 45 minutes away (another division of the company), but unless I can convince the evil Catbert otherwise, we are stuck with the zillion little blocks of wood.

-Kevin

[rookie432]

I'm with Gerald on this one. Dump the small blocks.
Your creating a semantics nightmare. you would need a pretty heavy vac system to make this work effectively in my mind. Possibly a whole lot of hot glue.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm............. Maybe..... yeah ...
Here's what I might do if I HAD to use the small blocks. Get yourself a piece of 3/4" plywood(scrap) cut block holes in it sized just so your blocks will fit fairly tight. This willl take care of the horizontal pressure. screw the plywood to your table the maybe put some hot glue in the holes and place your block in. That will help with your vertical pressure and go slow.
Otherwise get the planks.

Bill

[bill.young]

Kevin,

Are the blocks random sizes, or are they grouped somehow? If you have multiples of the same size (a bunch of 2 5/8", a bunch of 3 7/8", etc), then how about something like this...

The red pieces are your blocks and all the rest are cut out of plywood or something like that. The two blue pieces are securely screwed to the table and the blocks are placed in the v-cuts in the bottom blue piece and the green piece. Then a wedge (the hatched piece) is driven in from the side to lock everything in place. Once you've cut all the blocks of one size, just cut a different sized wedge or move the blue pieces together or apart.

You would still have to deal with the different thicknesses, but it sure would be cheap and easy,

Bill


4962

[sheldon@dingwallguitars.com]

3M makes a heavy duty double sided tape - black in color. I don't remember the number, but it's available at Home Depot (in Canada at least). It's got an aggressive tack, but will come off without damaging the work piece or the MDF.

We use it in combination with locating pins on an MDF spoilboard for one-off work.

For pins we use 1/4" dowel pins. A box of 100 is cheap and accurate.

If you can afford a blind hole or two in the back of your part, you can use the shopbot to punch all of your locator pin holes in the MDF spoilboard. Use it to make a drill jig to drill the backs of the parts if you are using two pins per part.

If you're just doing rosettes, you would only need one pin in the center of each rosette. If you can afford +/- 1/128" tolerance, drill the part with a 17/64" bit. It will make on and offloading the parts a lot easier. (leave the pins in the table)

[graphicmetals]

Gotta love the resourcefulness of ShopBotters! Really like Bill Young's idea. Will try a variation of it and let you know how it works.

Thank again to all.

-Kevin

[papadaveinwy]

Kevin Bills Idea will work with no problem, any veriation will work I have done this same kind of holding process when I have had customers bring in "money saving precut pieces" for me to do. David in Wyoming

[papadaveinwy]

Kevin I have one more piece of advice, To go along with gerald advice of firing the guys that cut them first. FIRE THE BOSS!!! [
]

[gerald_d]

Instead of Bill's wedge, you could use an inflatable rubber pipe (garden hose). Pressurise the pipe to clamp. This allows for small differences in block size.

[graphicmetals]

It worked great Bill! Thanks again.

-Kevin

[bill.young]

Hi Kevin,

Glad to hear it.

As a side note, if you hadn't been in a time crunch this sort of "real world" problem would be a great idea for the project design session at the Jamboree. If anyone else has a similar problem ( and a month or so to wait for a solution!), send your idea to jamboree@shopbottools.com (mailto:jamboree@shopbottools.com)

Bill

[papadaveinwy]

Kevin,if you ever run into this again and need to have then the same thickness ( you never stated that you did) you can do what I do before I rout anything of importance, just chuck in a 1 1/2 " surfaceing bit or even a 3/4" straight bit and do some planing passes, just like surfaceing your table, Bill has a topic on surfaceing the table in "Bill's corner" you just set the limits for the size of your wood I have made floppy's of the most common sizes I do and just pop them in and walk away. David in Wyoming

[Mayo]

Aren't you loosing any time savings from using the shopbot, by having to load all those pieces on and off the table each time, not to mention time lost from bit changes?

An indexed style of jig and a drill press has to be faster... no?

[gerald_d]

The inflatable hosepipe is available in industrial standard. See this catalog page (http://www.dynamicrubber.com/DIM2.htm) - dimension C is the usable stroke. The illustrations in the catalog are for the natural (non-inflated) condition. When inflated, the inner "hole" becomes a fuller circle. Deflate, and it returns to original narrow profile by itself (rubber memory?).

[graphicmetals]

Mayo,

Yes, and no. If it is a (round) profile that can be done using a drill press, I am pushing to have these done the traditional way, although one could argue that 2-3 ShopBots, attended by one person (loading, unloading) is more productive than one person running a drill press. I have not crunched the numbers yet to confirm this though.

Anyway, where the ShopBot really shines, and what I am pushing for here, is when doing non-circular designs in the rosettes; flowers, letters, etc. These cannot be done by a guy in his garage with a $400.00 drill press. Makes sense to me to do these on the ShopBot and leave the circular designs to the old drill press.

-Kevin