Holding furniture legs for milling

[waynec]

Anybody have a good jig or the like for milling mortises into table legs or chair legs?

I was thinking of some sort of jig to hold a set of legs so the CNC could mill the mortises. A similar setup could be used to mill tenons.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to do this, so I'm wondering what works best.

Thanks

[mrdovey]

Wayne...

The best I've been able to come up with for my work (not table parts, but same problem) has been to make a pallet of 3/4" plywood that I clamp to the table with mini T-Track running crosswise to the part. I made clamps like: http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/t-clamps.html to hold the work in place.

There have been a number of other good fixtures posted to the forum. You might want to take a look at a wedge clamping setup that (I think) Jay Mack posted.

...Morris

[ron brown]

5896.jpg

Was used for holding styles on cabinet doors. Operation was 1.25 deep X 1.75 X 1/4 mortise on each end with a "dado" connection. Vacuum held 4 pieces at a time. The same system would hold 4 legs with only a little modification.

Ron

[andrewm]

Wayne,

I had a number of bunk bed posts that I needed to have holes drilled in as well as a 3/8" slot the length of the post. These were all square 3" posts 40" tall.

I was cut a number of 3"x40" rectangles out of a sheet of 3/4" MDF. Each post then fit in the resulting holes and was held tight with 3 small shims. (one top, 2 sides) I was able to load the table up with 4 posts in a shot. Had I used the whole table I could have really loaded it up.

In the attached photo you can see the bot cutting the slot. It then drilled 3 holes as well. I then rotated the posts and ran another file to drill the holes on the other side.


5905.jpg

[waynec]

Wow! Talk about a blinding flash of the obvious. I'm a woodworker, and if there is one thing woodworkers are, its clever at making jigs and things.

I have used each of these techniques- wedges, containing parts in boxes, and holding parts in routed seats. But for some reason I didn't think to use these techniques on the CNC.

I really like the wedge idea, and will probably use a variant of that. But I can also quickly just tack some strips that are tight to the workpiece and be in business in seconds.

Sometimes I like to make a thing harder than it really needs to be. Thanks for showing me several simple and fast ways to hold things down.

Wayne from White Salmon