Ingenious ideas / materials for making a workholding area / spoilboard?

[William Adams]

Trying to work up a workholding solution for my new Shapeoko 3, and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on things which could be:

- purchased at a home center / specialty woodoworking shop
- would accommodate a just less than 23.25" x 23.25" space
- fit to a 16" x 16" cutting area
- be easily put together w/o a lot of specialty tools or gear

Thus far, the best idea I have is:

- buy 4' x 4' pegboard sections --- have them cut at the store into 23.25" squares? --- worst case is cut w/ a hand-saw into fourths --- this would leave 2 factory edges per piece, how likely are they to line up w/ the holes in a stack?
- use 1/4-20 T-nuts --- put 4 in the machine's wasteboard and fill in lots of the bottom of the pegboard
- maybe cut a ~16" x 16" inset and add this: Everbilt: 16 in. x 16 in. Black Plastic Pegboard (available at the orange big box store) --- one interesting idea about using the plastic is that I could repair it w/ my daughter's 3D Doodler pen (and then surface it)

I'm trying to accommodate the idea of the new purchaser who doesn't have the machine up and running yet and might not have a full shop.
If someone has a better idea, I'd be glad of it.

[Eric DeSilva]

At my local TechShop they use plain MDF and nail the work to the MDF with a pneumatic nailer. The nailgun shoots polymer nails--won't damage the router bit if you catch one and you can break them by giving your workpiece a quick sideways whack with a mallet.

See this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Poly...C-workholding/

[William Adams]

I've seen that, but it requires several pieces of specialized equipment --- I want something simple, straight-forward and suited to setting up at a kitchen table.

[Mike Heidrick]

Strips of mdf nylon bolted to anther piece of mdf, bolts recessed. T-track bolted also to the mdf base between the strips.

[William Adams]

Yeah, T-track is something which I considered (including bolting together a pair of drill press tables from the waterfront shipping company toolstore) — it would require driving over to the other shore AFAICT, since the big box home centers don’t carry it.

Ah well, I’ve picked up 2 sheets of the 4x4 pegboard, and the plastic thing, so we’ll see how it turns out tomorrow.

[Mike Heidrick]

How do you plan to surface pegboard?

[William Adams]

And that’s why I’m planning on using the Everbilt 16x16" plastic pegboard on top of the tempered Masonite pegboard.

I’m hoping to be able to use the five connection points and the rim which I’ll hopefully be cutting an inset for to get it pretty much level, then I’ll skim off the top surface of the plastic. It’s not as thick as I was hoping, so I may try filling in the underside w/ some sort of poured / cast plastic. Hoping I’ll be able to repair the plastic top somehow, but it’s only $5.69.

[Mike Heidrick]

If you were closer bro I'd help you. Have any woodworking friends around? Any clubs?

Most CNC work I do, the CNC part is only a small percentage of the work/tools required for the end result.

What are you going to use for dust collection? Shop Vac?

[William Adams]

Thanks, but the idea is to work up something which will be easy for any person who purchases a machine to set up for their machine either before-hand, or as part of putting the machine together.

Thinking on this a bit more, an 18"x18" or so surface w/ an array of 16x16 or so holes should work well, which would be 256 T-nuts, or better still, a radial arrangement spaced along the Golden Ratio — which is what I’ve drawn up and will cut.

[Ted Reischl]

Thanks, but the idea is to work up something which will be easy for any person who purchases a machine to set up for their machine either before-hand, or as part of putting the machine together.

Thinking on this a bit more, an 18"x18" or so surface w/ an array of 16x16 or so holes should work well, which would be 256 T-nuts, or better still, a radial arrangement spaced along the Golden Ratio — which is what I’ve drawn up and will cut.

That sounds like a lot of work. Years ago I tried that whole T-nut idea. It was for the birds. Two reasons at least:

A) The T-nuts fill up with debris, and yes, I do run dust collection.
B) When the spoil board finally gets chewed up the nuts have to be popped out which is tedious at best. Then 256 holes have to be redrilled, the t nuts reinstalled. That is not easy, it is not fast.

What I finally came up with was t track. But I do not mill dadoes in the spoil board, that would get old too. Instead, I cut strips of plywood about 5.25 wide. Screw one down with the heads counter bored well below the surface. Put a track in and screw it down. . .rinse and repeat until the table is covered. When it is time to replace the spoil boards, all I need to do is cut the strips, take out the old ones and screw down the new ones.

One other problem with t nuts is that it is easy for them to become loose. This happens when a clamp is being loosened. Instead of the nut on the clamp end turning, the whole darn rod turns. Cutting bolts for each and every length is not practical either.

I give t-nuts 2 thumbs down. Then make look cool, they look like they will work. . . . but not in my experience. Maybe others have been more successful with the little devils.

[Roy Nielsen]

My current spoilboard is a piece of 3/4" MDF on top of another piece of 3/4" MDF. I thought about T-nuts but wanted something that wouldn't damage a bit/the machine should I accidentally plunge into it; additionally, I use 5/16" nylon bolts again to protect stuff should something go screwy. I used some brass inserts, used the CNC to drill the holes. The problems with these are that they are a) expensive to get enough in, b), due to their depth they go all the way through the MDF and become shrapnel when surfacing. The next spoilboard I do will use t-track and/or drill/tap/thin CA glue the MDF for my bolts.

[William Adams]

Thanks!

Some excellent ideas, which I’ll have to keep in mind, either to make work-arounds for in the current version, or to avoid in the next.

I did somehow end up w/ a pair of nylon #10-24 plastic bolts, and I was thinking I’d get two more and use them in the field so as to make things a bit safer.