After occasionally placing my Shapeoko clamps and having them “trimmed off” a bit, I needed some more. I hadn’t explored cutting anything but wood at this point and decided to explore HDPE. I based my replacement clamps design on the ones that I got with my machine and made one modification on some of them to suit my needs. You can see with the attached images that the newer style has a wider back end. I found I needed this so I wasn’t constantly putting a wood bridge across the T track space. They may not be pretty but they work well.
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Nice!
The big thing when clamping is to consider leverage and cutting forces, see:
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Hi Chris-A:
First, you should place a board with screw anchors above the floor of the Shapeoko as otherwise you have to replace the boards often. I use a 2’ x 2’ x 5/8" plywood or MVR board where I place anchors every 3 inches. I also use an 1/8" thick perforated piece of metal (1.5" x 6") to anchor parts to be machined. See the picture attached. to avoid damage to the piece to be machined, I often place a silicone pad under the metal anchor where it interfaces the part.
Good luck!
Len
