Core77

Desktop CNC Milling Productivity Tip: Cut a Grid Into Your Spoilboard [Core77 ShopBot Series, Episode 06]

By Rain Noe - November 12, 2014

in Digital Fabrication

When you're mounting a workpiece to a CNC mill by screwing it into a spoilboard, that spoilboard of course becomes riddled with holes. If you keep hitting the same hole over and over again--by, say, continually mounting your piece so that its lower left corner corresponds with the lower left corner of the spoilboard—the screw no longer has enough material to bite into.

One solution is to keep mounting successive workpieces at different locations on the spoilboard, to find "fresh" MDF to screw into. But you then have to drive the spindle over to the lower left corner of your piece and indicate that as 0,0 in the X- and Y-axes, so that the machine knows where to start cutting.

A quicker solution is to simply draw a grid in your spoilboard. Now you can mount your workpiece wherever you'd like, and then use the grid to figure out where your workpiece is—for example, if you've placed it at x3, y4, then on your drawing you simply use guidelines to locate the piece at x3, y4.

Previously: Episode 05 - Making a Spoilboard for the ShopBot Desktop, Part 2, and Installing the Dust Enclosure // All Core77 ShopBot Series posts →

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Walter Kowalski

9 years ago

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Thank you for this advice on mounting workpieces to a CNC mill. The scenario you described definitely applies to me. I have a problem with hitting the same hole over and over again. I'll be sure to take your advice and draw a grid to the spoilboard.

Walter Kowalski | http://hargo.com.au/our-work/cnc-milling-services/

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Mackey

10 years ago

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Here here! These multipart series are excellent- like the paulk series. Thanks for your work putting these out.
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Juan Cano

10 years ago

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So, I don't own one of these, or anything like it, I don't even know how to use it, but I find all your videos explaining every little detail and all the steps to set it up and make it work, just utterly fascinating. You're great at it.
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