The Exalted Society of Chowed Beds And Clamps

[McBuster]

Well, I delayed chewing up my Shark for almost three weeks. Then, the grinding sounds of the clutches in the servo motors, was the orchestrated preamble to the Initiation Ceremony of this select group.

Now, behind the veil of shame and disgust, I bare my soul to the world with the images of my guilt. Be compassionate my friends, and please add your own stories and reaction, and images.

Jon ...
Woodbury Mn

[Keith Hodges]

The first of many my friend! ;0(. Turn it over and nobody will be the wiser!

[ohiococonut]

That's just the unwritten part of the learning curve we ALL experience. It's not a question of "if" you'll cut into a clamp or the table, it's when.

3 weeks ? I've still got you beat If I remember correctly it only took me 3 days! All of my clamps show battle scars and there's one on my table. I soon learned to zero ALL of my projects on the center of the material and add at least 1" all around the edges for the clamps. Most of my wood comes from the exotic section and I don't like wasting anymore than I have to so the scraps are cut into pen blanks etc.

You are now officially initiated into the world of CNC. Welcome!

[KarenW]

At the risk of a jinx (oogah boogah, evil eye, knock wood) my table is pristine.
Only because my clamps take the abuse.
I'm convinced these dings are the CNC God's lessons in humility to keep the ego in check.
No matter how good you think you are, sh*t happens.

But one little tip.... turn your clamp the other way - long arm on the work piece, short booted foot on the table. Not only keeps the handle well away from the business end of things but opens up a much larger range of clamping.

[Keith Hodges]

Good eye Karen, I didn't even notice he had the clamps reversed. That's what makes this fun, makin sure you don't do that again!

[rsetina]

Ouch! Knock on wood, I haven't done that yet. I'm always leaving extra wood for clamping and am now in the habit of setting my 000 in the center of the workpiece when ever possible.

[Keith Hodges]

Setting your start point in the middle won't necessarily stop cutting into your table. The few times mine has been gouged was during a carving, and had nothing to do with the start point. Cutting my clamps has everything to do with leaving enough space around the outside of your project. Gouging my table was usually my fault once I went back and checked my file settings.

[gordread]

I don't have any scars on the table, but that is mostly because I use a pretty heavy 3/4 scarf board an just about everything that I cut. IMO that is why god invented MDF.

As for my clamps, well that is a completely other story, I have learned a couple of very important lessons:
1/2 EM + clamp = shorter clamp
.125 60 deg V-bit + clamp = time to buy a new bit

The second is a much more expensive equation. The Precise bits v-bits are fantastic, but they are expensive.

Welcome to the club.

[Keith Hodges]

Yeah, I bought some extra clamps, just so my shark would have some fresh meat to chew on. Recently I made the wooden clamps posted in the file sharing forum on this site. Still chewing them up, but Oak clamps don't hurt near as much as the aluminum ones do.

[Eagle55]

I'll try to come up with a few pictures of my clamps and set up that have been milled into. One thing for sure, if you haven't milled into a clamp or rail its probably because you either haven't used the machine at all or haven't used it very much. As careful as I try to be things go wrong, and 9 times out of 10 its going to be related to operator error or oversight, although I know there are a few things that just go wild and UN-explainable. So far I can account for all of mine being mistakes that I have made and not due to the machine problems.

Roger