Manufacturing at Home - Fixture Plate to Machine, Drill & Tap Steel Part

Happy Thanksgiving folks! Wanted to share this video which is a great summary of how I run my home machine shop: cutting a part on the plasma machine, tumble, then use a fixture to machine 16 at a time on the Tormach PCNC Mill!
/ kef791 (Keith Fenner)
/ oxtoolco
/ abom79
/ mrpete222 (Tubalcain) 5 Reasons to Use a Fixture Plate on Your CNC Machine: bit.ly/3sNA4uH

[@richardmogel2186]

Run a .015 chamfer around the bottom of the fixture plate it will help with sitting it in the vise. Also next fixture your make. Make it out of 3/4 thick material or put jacks under the ends it will help you with fixture longevity. I understand the parts are not critical but I am a believer in make it super strong once instead of saving money 3 times. All in all good fixture good layout for someone who hasn't been doing it all that long you have you act together. One piece of advice I have been a machinist for 15 years and I learn new stuff everyday. The guy that I work with has been a machinist for 38 years and I taught him a little trick the other day so you will never stop learning. I wish I could have my own business but that's what I am saving for best of luck in the new year

[@richardmogel2186]

When I turn something. I rough everything to .095 then rough to .035. Then when I put my finish tool in I touch off and take .015 measure which should leave .020 then I split it in half cut .01 sand measure take the rest sand measure 99% it always puts it right on the number if not it never takes to much so then I just sand a tad more. And if you have a bearing diameter that calls for a 32 finish I use the light machine oil and sand with 180 and or 220 and it always puts me in the finish spec

[@richardmogel2186]

You should look up centroid cnc 5 axis and just watch this thing move absolutely incredible

[@ManufacturingAmerica1]

This is great. John, we he was going up had no idea that he would become his on broadcast station. And, because that, his business took off. The Internet and America, a great combination. Good job John and best of luck to you.

[@hankus253]

Thank you John, enjoy your videos very much along with everyone of the others you mentioned.

[@CarterWHern]

John, You are the first one to use a clip on mike. Your audio is very consistent. I hope the Tom Lipton will take note. Carter

[@Hogtopia]

John, I really like your direction with projects. Lots of people learn in an applied way and your very effective at it. BTW, in another video you mentioned not getting bored watching the machine run. I agree, its almost like staring at a campfire. Happy Thanksgiving.

[@sunppaa]

Great work! Have you thought about getting a bigger CNC-mill?

[@DrMerkwurdig]

Hello! I just found your channel here and started browse through your videos... Lots of interesting stuff to look through and learn from! So far I only have manual machines in my shop, this CNC stuff seems really advanced. I appreciate the time you take to make these movies, I just made som myself and learned that it is a lot more difficult to get something done when you are trying to film yourself at the same time...

[@paulpannabecker4641]

John, I enjoyed this a bit after Thanksgiving but I hope the rest of the Christmas Holidays are great for you and your family. Face time on the video was very well done. Some folks over do it. A good example of fixture clamping is one we use regularly in the shop, that's the carbide inserts.

[@paulpannabecker4641]

No, just look at the way different carbide inserts are clamped into the holding tools. For instance I have a S10S-TNER2 Notch S-NE Boring Bar, it holds NT type bits ether threading or notching. Unless it is dirty the bits return to exactly the same positions. This is because the clamping force is applied to more that one registration surface. Look at your toe clamps if you had a tapered cone (very small) that pressed the part into the dowel pins and then applied pressure downward the parts the registration would or could be completed in one step. This comes directly from the Department of Overkill (DOO).

[@NONAMESLEFTNONE]

This is incredible! I'm currently attempting to make my second fixture (accidentally attempted the first one doing all conventional cuts - ugly disaster) AND I'm trying to learn more about tapping (just spent $150 on second hand tapmatic only to find out that the shop already has a better one). I'm wondering what tapping head are you using? And would it provide better coordinate registration and more cut accuracy if you made the center point (CS) at the center of you fixture vs off to one corner like that? Or does it matter in this case? Being new to cnc and machining, do you find the center drill helpful when the parts are relatively thin like that? Thanks for all of you help and these great, informative videos.

[@JaakkoF]

Nive fixture and really thought out :) If you have extremely high volume part, I would almost suggest using toggle clamps like those available from Wixroyd. No tools part change is convenient and fast :) Otherwise, if you really have to use socket head cap screws, take a cordless drill, insert a piece of allen wrench in the chuck and adjust the torque limiter. Very fast and very easy. Other than that, ALWAYS put some blocks under your fixture if you are drilling. Dilling as an operation imposes huge loads on the part and as can be seen from your video, it makes the fixture bend a lot. Either bolt down some scrap blocks or use parallels or the easiest just regular machinist jacks under the near ends.

[@gbowne1]

The book jig & fixture design is a good read. Die design fundamentals is as well in that respect. I think theyre both on Google books for a read on your ereader, tablet, ipad, etc.

[@paulbirkner7082]

Great video! I'd love to see an example of one of your more complex fixture plates, or even a video of you making one from start to finish!

[@bullseye9899]

What type tapping head is that? Looked to be auto reversing? Great video!

[@joedanero]

I had a cnc instructor who despised indexing off of the top of the fixture and setting Z0 there. Something about positive cuts being a no no. I think your point about part to part thickness variation is quite logical, but why not set my G55 Z0 at say the top of the vise, table, or fixture? Of course there would be something between the part, but for me it seems much easier to look at code and program Z depths when you know that anything negative might mean bad news.

[@earendall]

Great vid man! Congrats on the viewers and happy Thanksgiving to you as well as a Merry Christmas.

[@unionse7en]

also consider a simple relief in the center of your clamping bars so that the contact point is only in the middle region of your part.

[@scottwforsyth]

I would like to see a vid on how you design the fixture plate and then do the sprutcam programming if you get bored enough to make it.

[@hondathinktank]

Nice start to finish video, thanks.

[@backyardcnc]

nicely done and thanks but not sure about the drilling over air that occurs on the outside pieces. At around 16:20 the flex of the fixture plate is visible as you drill those holes. Should use a few jacks for support to ensure you don't break a drill or dislodge the fixture from the vise. Keep up the great vids!

[@ErwinEnterprises]

Check out the safe rapid height on the small drill. Also, the fast forward shows the left side of the fixture flexing on spot drill op. Other than that the fixture is perfect.

[@tansit2344]

I see some of your tools use a clearance height above the clamps and not just the parts causing you to cut a lot of air. Try sorting the holes and breaking up the drill cycles to jump over the clamps or just have separate part and rapid planes. What I'm getting at is toggling between G98 and G99 Z/R planes. I try to keep air cuts under .100" with a rapid plane 1/2-1" above for checking in single block mode.

[@TheJR914]

Good work John just one simple question on your tap cycle with the tormach does the spindle reverse on its way out? I could tell on the video. John R Happy Holidays

[@laurentcnc6662]

very nice John, I guess you will be able soon to make your cnc cafe delivery !

[@lepompier132]

John, about your question to put that pin on the milling machine. Sorry but to insert that pin in a press fit tolerance, you will have to do it after the parts are done. To do it in full auto mode, you would need a machine build just for that part, that would puch the holes, tap one hole and insert that pin and the part would be finish.

[@lepompier132]

John NYCCNC A little bit of humor doesn’t hurt. But on the manufacturing aspect of it, if someone really wanted an answer on that question. It’s important to give the correct answer. At a certain level, someone with time & money can build a special tool that could hold a fix number of small pins, and with one turn of the spindle one pin gets in position, ready to be push in place, like an automatic tapping head. But with such a tool the important thing would be to protect the spindle and avoid Z axis collision when the pin is inserted. But like I said, on a Tormach PCNC milling machine, outside milling, drilling and tapping and even with custom adaptors they offer. When your process, for a certain part requires the insertion of a press-fit pin and you have a contract to provide millions of them. I guess you do like the big manufacturing company and have a dedicated machine that will punch press each step and tap the hole and insert the pin to the part. But on a small scale production, small runs, I think it’s better to do it by hand inserting that pin. But I must say if one day someone does one tool that fits a milling machine and can press fit a minimum of pins for all the parts on the fixture, it would be a nice step in the right direction for all the small machine shops. The necessity (or need) is the mother of all invention! And don’t stop the great job you do with your videos.

[@bbarker5766]

I like the fixture and I had a couple of thoughts. Have you thought about using another pin on the middle where you have the bolt for your clamps to help to make them placed against the outside locator pins so you don't have the chance of them working away from the other pins a little bit? I know it wouldn't be much and probably wouldn't matter on those parts but just a thought. Also why do you mill the ends in the pattern your using? The reason I ask is because to me it seems like if you made a complete pass in the Y axis to you could save some time instead of going back and forth between and across each part.

[@bbarker5766]

NYC CNC For some reason it was tough for me to word it properly when I asked so I'm sorry about that. When you end mill the bottom part of the bracket why didn't you use a pattern like you did when you did the spot drilling on your parts in this video?

[@astbrnrd]

Dude u r a very gifted & humble machinist.....(pat yourself on the back...those are hard to come by! ;-) keep up the great work!) it has been very useful to see your progress. Are you going to eventually post on your site some of the things you've come up with??? :-D. Aha!.. Happy turkey day!

[@steveh8724]

I know John is way past this kind of fixture now. You can tell the age of the video by the brand of vise: Tormach, then Glacern, then Kurt, then Orange (might have been some others in there...). Anyway at 16:25 or so when drilling of the large holes starts, you can see the entire right side of the fixture plate deflecting downward from the pressure of the drilling op. While that might be fine for the tolerances on these parts, it probably could have been prevented by using longer aluminum vise jaws when using this fixture. Even though they would extend beyond the base of the vise, the beam stiffness of the aluminum jaws would probably eliminate the visible deflection.

[@EZ_shop]

Awesome video as always John, and good to see you in front of the camera too. Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving as well. I would gladly watch a CAD/CAM video on how you designed the fixture. Also, while probably not critical for this parts, you can actually see the fixture flexing a little while drilling on the overhung sides. Take care, and keep them coming. Ciao, Marco.

[@NONAMESLEFTNONE]

"I would gladly watch a CAD/CAM video on how you designed the fixture." Allow me to second this!

[@EZ_shop]

:-)

[@harleyghost]

Nice operation, have you thought about a automatic tool changer? Thank you for your video.

[@Erich1870]

can you link to the A-bomb79 guy? I can't seem to find him...

[@AeroSport103]

Interesting... Happy Thanksgiving!

[@joeshmoe5935]

him the overhang of that fixture plate. So that way you are not flexing the plate upon drilling. If the plate was mounted directly on the table then no issues.

[@Buckrun11]

Cool! I run a CNC Plasma machine as my day job. How much time did it take to do all the machining in real time?

[@Buckrun11]

Just wondering. Sometimes some of the programs I have to burn take over an hour per part!

[@Buckrun11]

Plasma and Oxy. It has 1 plasma head that we burn up to 1" materal. We can run 2 oxy. torches at the same time. The table is 10'x 30' so sometimes we have some very large jobs with lots of holes. I burned some parts of Oxtool the other day. Going to mail them to him. I am in Ohio. Going to be neat to see some parts I burned going into the big press he is building!

[@Buckrun11]

Lima there are branches in Dayton, Springfield and Mansfield.

[@Buckrun11]

Wow small world.

[@idksomethingunique]

Your fixture is flexing during the drilling operations on the wings.

[@romainstoudmann1346]

True, you should put some machining jacks under it to support it.

[@steveh8724]

@@romainstoudmann1346 Or just use longer aluminum vise jaws. They would be plenty stiff for the short overhang and a little less fussy to setup and break down.

[@joesabourin11]

Great series! What software are you using?

[@colormaker5070]

I watch your videos for hours and see you use several cad/cam softwares . I am getting ready to buy a Tormach 770 and will need a entry level cad/cam. I dont like fusion360 due to cloud based software so its down to Sprutcam or suggestions. I use Solidworks and would like to use cam inside SW can you offer suggestions.

[@shandusa]

Fusion 360 is for free if you make less than 100k per year

[@austin3538]

Nice work

[@georgearmenante7065]

What indicator are you using?

[@tuscanland]

Good work, thank you.

[@krazziee2000]

nice work ...

[@hdoug5]

awesome video :) thanks for sharing :)

[@rlockwood2]

I feel like you could save some time, and perhaps make better use of your expensive sub-plate.. :) Good video, though. Always nice to see people's process from CAD\CAM to the machine itself. I think that's often the most overlooked part of this; I often will show video of the machine running, but by that point, you've already missed all the smart bits.

[@rlockwood2]

John NYCCNC Pin the fixture to the table, and not need to probe the fixture. Its not a lot of time or anything, just seems silly to spend the money on the sub-plate, then bolt a vise to it and let it fill with chips :)

[@rlockwood2]

No real need to make it any bigger, could still be easily pinned and fixed to the table. Would also stop the fixture from flexing when drilling, etc. Obviously though, you have a much better picture of whether this is worth your time than I do :)

[@thetowniecollection]

Good Video !

[@MrShobar]

Your jig is visibly deflecting on the ends during the drilling operation.

[@unionse7en]

NYC CNC just out a support column between it and the bed plate

[@ipadize]

when do you clean your machine?

[@ipadize]

John NYCCNC yeah and cleaning it so it looks like new you know?

[@RomanVideos1]

What is this plate for ?

[@nickgroen89]

Thanks for the knowledge :) This kind of video's are very helpfull to me!

[@NightTrain920]

What was your feed rate for threading?

[@NightTrain920]

I was running way slower. I have a few case of broken tap inside the work piece. Probably I should start looking for right RPM and feed rate.

[@krap101]

It seemed like the last pass with the endmill wasn't deep enough to clean up the edge.

[@krap101]

John NYCCNC Sorry, when I said deep, I meant x-DOC (I think it's called axial engagement?). As the endmill passes over, you can see that it initially has full engagement, but moves towards the top (+y), you can see (and hear) the endmill come off the part. The third one seems to be the only one we can see that has the entire edge faced off.

[@krap101]

John NYCCNC Regardless, I thought that the dowel pins were clever, and this brought me back to your mitee bite video. On a slightly different note, do you use some sort of work stop when doing large runs or do you rezero?

[@GnosisMan50]

so what is the part for?

[@m98custom1212]

You meant want just mount that fixture on the table. I can see your fixture flexing when you are drilling.

[@tinkot]

Your fixture plate is bowing when you are drilling near the edges

[@bigchad007]

16:42 Fixture flex :)

[@tansit2344]

NYC CNC Also a good idea to have extra long parallels for flex problems like that.

[@CleanEdgeProductions]

More of a garage then a shop....

[@butamuhebc2682]

У НАС БЫ СВАРИЛИ ВМЕСТЕ И ПРОСВЕРЛИЛИ РАЗОМ!

[@foxyrollouts]

video video please..

[@Harrzack]

I know you are appreciative of your viewers, but the thanks, and previews and plans of future vids would be better served either by their selves or at the end of the vid. I came here to see your tech info - not your you tube data. Great stuff otherwise...

[@gbowne1]

The book jig & fixture design is a good read. Die design fundamentals is as well in that respect. I think theyre both on Google books for a read on your ereader, tablet, ipad, etc.

[@gbowne1]

Glad I could help! I highly recommend reading them.