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Made a fixture plate today

M

Mike R

Well-Known Member
Used my new to me cnc mill today on its longest and most nerve wracking project to date. I made a fixture plate with reamed holes and threaded holes in an offset pattern.
65 holes total, 33 tapped and 32 reamed.
3/4" spacing cause that looked nice and I'm planning on using this on small parts. Overall its a bit under 4" wide by 10" long as that was the size of salvaged plate I had. Only broke one tap on a setup piece as I was learning the settings for the tension compression tapping head.
Used the surface grinder cause I have one, and it gave a nice surface finish.
Next is to make some clamps to go with it. Not sure when that will happen. Need to get some ideas for those, maybe copy the Joe Pie ones.

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Yes, the Tormach did this. But I want to use this fixture plate on the little DMC2 Mini mill. I need to use that little mill just a bit, to see if it has a place in my shop now that I have the Tormach, or if I'll be selling it.
 
Mike R said:
Yes, the Tormach did this. But I want to use this fixture plate on the little DMC2 Mini mill. I need to use that little mill just a bit, to see if it has a place in my shop now that I have the Tormach, or if I'll be selling it.
Click to expand...
Once I get my mill conversion done a fixture plate is high on my list.
What thickness of plate did you use?
 
1/2" plate as that was what was on hand. I grabbed an old fixture that had been welded up at work many years ago and was being thrown out, I've been tripping over it for the last 10 years or more as it was 3 plates of 1/2" steel welded in a U shape. I had to mill the welds out as griding them off didn't weaken it enough for me to break the joint. Because of that I have 2nd identical piece to make another plate if motivated. The 3rd piece will be smaller due to the milling, and can now go flat in my material storage pile.
 
I actually planned to make a bigger 7" x 12" one from aluminum, but decided to do the steel one first. Got as far as rough cutting the aluminum (again from scrap). The aluminum one I'll need to layout and plan around some existing holes. I got to test my fixes to my bandsaws tracking and I was quite pleased with the outcome.
That's the straightest its cut since I've owned it. Tuning the saw up is its own story....
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