Ideas on how to hold a small part?

[bobmoore]

Meant no offense but I would have designed your fixture to pull down to a hard stop rather than dancing on a .030 tape or use Joes idea or find someone with an old Bridgeport mill. IMO all of those options would give you faster and higher quality parts. What were your feed and speeds? How many are you supposed to make?

[gbradley]

No offense taken. I just never cut umhw and at 1.5 thick. Me, cutting cabinet parts makes this part is ridiculous size and shape to be cutting on a router. As for the vacuum fixture the foam is meant to reduce vibration to get a cleaner edge, and save vacuum to hold each part. This guy has 400 different/ similar (same but different) parts to be made 500 to 1000 at a time. I have not taken this job being as crazy as it is.

[bobmoore]

Ouch; That is the kind of project that can sink a small shop. If I designed a vac fixture for that job I would use your "in board" vacuum material and pull down to a milled corian or aluminum type base onto a strip of 120 grit sand paper to get all the traction possible for your polyethylene. Pull at least 24 inches of mercury, put extra safety glasses on and let her rip. I think you are going to get too much vibration from your "on board" material.
It would be interesting to have your guys build one of each and test run both for comparison. That would be a very informative post for us botters in my opinion.
Thanks Bob