Marking Tins with The ShopBot

[cwshop]

I make some pie safes along with my other wood working. My original pie safe (most popular) has tins of my design and is not available for store bought stock size tins. I mark and punch by hand. I would like to be able to mark the points at least and possibly punch tins on the bot. The sheets are copper and tin and not all lay perfectly flat before punching. I have a dxf and software to configure pattern and tool path. If anyone has a suggestion of help, I would appreciate it.

[Brady Watson]

Make yourself a bracket & mount a spring loaded center punch. Just zero XY at the punch center & program it as a drilling toolpath. You'll have to experiment with Z speeds a little, but it should be fairly straightforward.

You can also trick SB3 into thinking the punch is a 2nd Z or air drill, but walk before you run by just zeroing the XY @ the punch center to start.

-B

[gene]

if you wanted to do the layout on the metal chuck a marker in the spindle and let it do the layout for you. I am sure that others will add ideas to this post

[cwshop]

In my R&D yesterday, I came upon the Starrett automatic center punch. As you push down on it, it releases and makes a point. I may not mount it directly to spindle, but some where on the Z axis. Then have a fixed offset.