Inset Board placement for small pieces and carves

I think you do understand me. I wonder if I’m overthinking this way to much.

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It’s okay, I do that all the time :wink:

There’s no kill like overkill!

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as @MeticulousMaynard mentioned, you can add scrap material of the same thickness (it need not be the same material, so you can go cheap) around the work piece to prevent this. Doing so may also alleviate putting screws through your work piece, if, for instance, you are making a sign and don’t want holes in the corners.

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hello,

I have been thinking about an insert as well. I have received my kit but have not had time to build it yet, recovering from the flu. I am planning on building my frame with a bed that has a grid work of dog holes that will allow me to arrange the modular skirt pieces to conform to various work pieces/ shapes. This led me to think about an insert that could be for fixed sized work, especially for frequent repeat projects. Just an idea at this point. Here is a link to my frame concept… Adjusting Bed, Not Motors I will post anything I try to make, but it may be a bit down the road though. Love to see your concept drawing!

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I like to use plastic nails to attach small things to the bed (see raptor
composite nails)

remember that you need to have support for your sled, so you will need to have
material that’s the same thickness (or at least provides the sled good support
everywhere if the piece is small enough)

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Has that been working well for you? Is your spoil board made of plywood? (mine is MDF, and I am wondering if they would work).

I am really interested in using those Raptor nails, but it would require another purchase (which might just happen).

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techshop used them for the shopbots, and they used MDF backers. The nails had no
trouble going through plywood, MDF, or ‘real’ wood

I highly recommend them.

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Sweet, thanks for the info. Have you started using them with the Maslow?

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I haven’t cleared enough space in my garage to squeeze in the maslow, so I
haven’t built mine yet :frowning:

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For how active you are in Maslow-land, I figured you had at least 3 built.

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I think you said that you had used those Raptor nails with any old nail gun (not the Raptor specific one), am I remembering that correctly? I am considering a run to Harbor Freight to pick up a compressor and gun.

Yeah, space, like time, is always in short supply for my projects too. I am looking forward to making some chips, but just haven’t had the time to get to it yet :frowning: Still need to install a spoil board over my backer and get a skirt attached. Of course, I could cut some samples without either of those, but, again, time!

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Well, this Instructable kind of answers my question :slight_smile: https://www.instructables.com/id/Polymer-nails-for-CNC-workholding/

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Alright…
so, I ordered some composite nails from Raptor to use in a brad nailer and just got a call from the company rep wanting to know if I was planning to use them for CNC work based upon the Instructables article. They are concerned because the 1" length (which I ordered) can have problems penetrating into 3/4" hardwoods and plywood when used with a nail gun other than theirs, and he wanted to let me know that. Also that the brads are a slightly smaller diameter and can get misaligned in many brad nailers on the market leading to mis-fires, which is not the fault of the nail. He said that the shorter lengths don’t have as many issues as the 1" length and is sending me a few samples to test out in lieu of processing my order. That is good customer service!

I guess I have some testing to do after they arrive. I’ll be sure to report back.

For those that are interested, I have a 1/2" MDF backer board and am planning a 1/8" MDF spoil board on top of that. I have plenty of 1/2" plywood, MDF, and OSB as well as 3/4" oak, plywood, and softwood scrap hanging around, so I will try them all with the samples he sends.

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@Jkmang, is this kind of what you were thinking?
image

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by the way, support for this sort of thing is why the default frame has the two
vertical pieces in the middle. you don’t have to have plywood permanently
attached to the frame, and you have support where you would need it :slight_smile:

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too busy designing, building linkage kits, and getting really started at a new
job to actually do cleaning :wink:

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Follow up on Raptor nails:

The Raptor nails rep sent me some 0.8 inch and 1 inch brad nails to test. I used a Ryobi brad nailer and tested to see which types of material I had on hand could be nailed to my backer board.

I started with a piece of pine 1x4 and found that both nails were able to fully penetrate the wood, though the 1" nails had a higher failure rate of about 20%.

Next I tried 3/4" plywood. This was a little more disappointing as I wasn’t able to get any 1" nails to penetrate, with more than half failing at or near the surface. I should clarify here what I mean by failure as opposed to penetration… I considered a failure to be the nail shattering on the surface of the material, whereas penetration could range from half the nail to sticking out the other side.

I was able to get a piece of 2/4" ply nailed to the backer board with two of the 0.8" nails, but more than half of the nails failed or didn’t penetrate through the plywood.

With 1/2" plywood the results for the 1" nails were about the same, but the success rate of the 0.8" nails was much better, with more than 50% of the nails fully penetrating and holding the wood to the backer board. Certainly, 50% is a high rate for having nails not fully penetrate, but it is a viable option for workpiece holding.

Next I tried OSB. This is an easy one to report on because all of the nails failed at the surface.

And finally 3/4" oak, which also had no full penetration, though some nails did embed, so perhaps a thinner piece might be usable.

I didn’t try and MDF as all I had was 1/4" thick stock, which the nails seemed to easily penetrate.

Removal of the nailed workpieces was as simple as I had hoped, with a sharp rap sideways causing the nails to break between the work piece and the backer board. A sharp knife took care of any part of the nail left standing proud.

So, my conclusion is that these nails are perfect for any softwood nailing, but expect to lose a bunch on the way to affixing 1/2" plywood, and OSB, 3/4" plywood, and 3/4" hardwood are a no go.

NOTE: I do want to stress that these tests were done with a nailer that I bought for being the lowest price, and that said nailer is not recommended by Raptor nails. A better nailer may have better results, and the Raptor specific nailers would undoubtably be best.

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Hi Keith – what pressure did you have your compressor set to?

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I actually bought a battery powered nailer. I played with the pressure settings on it, but found that a mid range setting seemed to work best. There wasn’t a lot of difference, though. The Instructable that I originally referenced suggested pressures around 90psi

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I know it has been a while since this thread was active but I didn’t feel like @Jkmang 's idea was fully understood (maybe, however, by @Kelvin ). unless of course I have an idea about it that no one had thought of and I highly doubt that. I believe the advantage to cutting out a window is that you can cut it out of a top piece leaving your spoiled board as is. This window in your top piece allows for inserting smaller stock and not only that but being in the same place you know in your cam program where to place your home. Repeatable projects are slick this way. It is very accurate to do something in the exact position you did before. I have literally used the Maslow to cut out an exact place 4 material other than wood to go in. I drilled angled holes for plastic wall anchors as little wedges to hold it and this is safe from damaging the bit. I got the idea from placing scrap into my original sled cutout to avoid a catastrophic trap for it’s own sled! I have since filled any significant holes this way and realized I didn’t have to replace my original stock as often. This lead to my repeatable idea above. To know it is in the right place just match your “home” up to the original cutout in cam program. Hope this makes sense.:thinking::bow_and_arrow: