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soft jaw style workholding for tooling plate

sigmatero

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 23, 2011
Location
Idaho
How do you hold down parts on a tooling plate without a vise but with carved soft jaws that still grip down and in? IOW, I can't use a method like mitee bites since the part is very curved so I need to have an outline block carved for it to nest in. But how do I hold down the block at the same time so it pushes in and down on the part? (hard to describe by words)
 
Harold Hall has designs for several types of hold down clamhttp://homews.co.uk/page466.htmlps,

Harold's clamps all have flat clamping faces, but that can be modified.
 
How do you hold down parts on a tooling plate without a vise but with carved soft jaws that still grip down and in? IOW, I can't use a method like mitee bites since the part is very curved so I need to have an outline block carved for it to nest in. But how do I hold down the block at the same time so it pushes in and down on the part? (hard to describe by words)

I have a 2-jaw Hardinge chuck for that sort of thing. And a magnetic. They don't HAVE to be on a lathe.

Actuators fixtured to a subplate/faceplate can do the same stuff - just need a different sort of preparation and mountup.

For "jaws", one can even cast plastic "halves" to hold some of the damndest shapes imaginable.

Common ones from "antiquity" included cast brass plumbing valve bodies and such as needed turned, bored, or both.

Keep researching. Eyeball what turns-up vs your own particular "shapes" and material.

Think "tilt" as you go.

You can make a fixture clamp HAVE "downforce" by simply making its base with a slight angle to it even if the "jaw" cavity is too complex to diddle with, directly. A resilient elastomer plug inserted into drilled hole, underside, can act as "spring" for easy release as you cycle. Etc., etc.

Others will assuredly have already done things you can adapt if not use "directly".
 








 
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