3D printing fixtures. Surprisingly effective for small run work.

So this past week I tried something new out.

I have a couple castings I machine a few features on, you can read more about them here: http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/how-should-i-hold-these-castings-278570/

This time around it's a new rev of the casting, same general swoop shape, just a bit longer, 4 holes, and a different feature along the "tail" end. Ultimately the same challenges as with the first part.

The way I ended up attacking the earlier fixtures was a slab of bondo, and epoxy with a similar clamping setup as in the below pictures.

I decided to try out some fixturing with the new Makerbot 3D printer the design guys have been playing with the last few weeks. I drew up a negative pocket for the casting to sit in, some holes along the back of the block to allow for bolts to anchor the print to a plate, and set it up to print and left for the weekend. I gotta say it's pretty cool to show up Monday morning to most of my fixturing printed and ready to toss in the machine!
I took a piece of plate, cut a shallow pocket the size of the print block to hold it in the center of the plate, and some tapped holes that related to the holes in the print. I ran some 1/4-20's down the holes in the plate, and epoxied around them to anchor the print to the plate. A little bondo along the top and I was good to go.

This method worked like a charm, it was quick, got er done and got me onto the next thing, but I definitely learned a lot from this. I realize this is a light duty application, but hey, when you got the job for it, it works great.

That's sweet!!

This is definitely cool. We have a 3D printer at the new job, but it's in the engineers' department. I think I can show some folks this application and convince them to grant the machine shop access

I've used ours to make very small vacuum fixtures to do small flat parts...
Works pretty good if you have the right parts for it.
Just another solution...