Buddy Holddown and Spoil Board

[erik_f]

I would counter sink a grid of holes into your work area and then drill through the centers all the way through and then hammer some t-nuts into the bottom. This will allow you to bolt and unbolt your spoil board without having to screw into your factory provided table. I'm not sure why shopbot makes the bottom part of the table bigger than the actual work area, unless it provides a wider base for the rollers to roll over. You shouldn't have to take the wood off the powerstick in order to do what I am saying. I am sure some other people that have the newer version my have some good ideas as well. Hopefully some of them will chime in. Is what I am saying make sense?

[dana_swift]

Interesting to see what is going on with the new models. My BT-32 has the aluminum slab, but I would think the bolt grid could be replicated on the new ply-base version of the machines. The tapped holes are the reference for all of my bolt-on fixtures.

Several files exist that define the hole pattern for the original version of the BT-32 and BT-48.

I used one set of holes on the base to bolt my spoilboards down. That is good because I have already gone through my original spoilboard and am on my second one. Bolting the spoilboard to the underlying table makes sense to me, because you can always remove it for a little extra Z height. There has been a time or two where I ran without any spoilboard at all to squeeze all possible Z room out of the machine. When the operation was done I just bolted the spoilboard back where it had been before.

Keep posting pictures, it is interesting to see how the next generation of BT's handle the issues we handled in the first generation.

D

[mrps]

Matt,

I have a Standard 32. My hold down system is a vac and manual hold down. I used the ¾ in. ply from my crate for both table top and spoil board.

This is how I did my manual hold down.

1st. New table top (or you can use you spoil board if you don't want to start over). Cut holes in the table top to fit a bolt flush with the top (I use ¼ in. nuts and bolts). I think my bolts are spaced about 4.5 in apart. Your nearest hold down point will be set by the spacing of your nuts. I would use smaller spacing if I was to do it again.

2nd. New spoil board. Cut ¼ in. holes all the way through the spoil board to match up with the bolts on the table top. If you are going to glue the spoil board down you wont need to cut counter sink holes to screw down to the table top. This will let you resurface the spoil board may times. I screwed mine down in case I needed to change something (like add more nuts).

3rd. Jigs for hold down. What ever you can come up with. The one in the pic and its counter part is my most used ones. The best part of this jig is I cut off some brad nails and set them in the side of the jig to poke into the side of the part I'm holding down.

Bad pic. You can't really see the lock down nut on each bolt.

I also use the bolt holes for dowels for quickly changing parts.


40087.jpg

[superjez]

I have had my buddy for a short while and I'm still learning how to use it. I cut a new spoil board and counter sunk the screw heads and used double sided tape. I use double sided tape as a hold down too. The tape I use is very strong and I get it from an Awards/Trophy manufacturer. So far it's working very well