Full Blind Finger Joints

[FlatBaller (Eddie Garmon)]

Well after an afternoon of playing, I have a way to mill blind finger joints without having to do any vertical mounting.

[mbellon (Mark Bellon)]

Nice! Do you know about this package?

http://www.tailmaker.net/box-joints.html

mark

[1st_Kiwi_Nomad (Leith)]

Yes, agreed very nice! Tailmaker looks cool although in solidworks it would also be very straightforward to draw something like this up or even more complex ones.

[mbellon (Mark Bellon)]

I’ve used it before. Its really amazing to see the reaction of people to a box where all of sides are random joints - with a perfect fit!

SolidWorks? Yeah, you can do lot of cool stuff!

mark

[FlatBaller (Eddie Garmon)]

I did not know of this. glad to see that we both used the same base tool (ball nose) and similar concepts. will have to check it out.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

There’s a second program listed at:

http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Commercial_Software#Joints

http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

Discussion here: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Fabrication_Techniques_%26_Hardware#Joinery — esp. note Knapp joints, which were the first to be machine cut.

[kjl]

Ah, so that’s what they’re called (full blind finger joints)! I made a box like this as a super early project when I got the nomad; never knew what to call them.

Overengineered box for the endmills I don't have yet

Hi, just wanted to share my first Nomad project. I wanted to choose something I wouldn’t be able to make normally, and that involved a kind of precise fit, so I totally overengineered a box. [image] At first, I was just doing roughing and contour/waterline passes with the flat mill, and had some issues, like the dirty edges and ugly finish on the 45 degree angle cut: [image] But after some experimenting with different strategies (contouring on the vertical parts, waterline on the steeper…

So much fun designing this kind of stuff!

I like the rounded edges - you get to avoid the extra deep circular mouse ear cuts I had to make to fit the 90 deg corners… Cool idea!

[mbellon (Mark Bellon)]

If people are going to playing with wood joints, one might want to know what they are all called and how to make them on a CNC machine. Here you go:

http://www.flexiblestream.org/project/50-digital-wood-joints

I do have to say that this package:

http://www.tailmaker.net/box-joints.html15

is AWESOME SAUCE, having used it for a few projects in the past. it requires knowledge of G code to set it up for a particular machine. The Nomad isn’t hard. If there are those who don’t want to work it out for yourself, I will post the Nomad particulars.

mark

P.S.

Here is a MeshCAM screenshot of a Mortise and Tenon joint I did for a project a while back:

Mortise and tenon

One can see the “dog biscuit” that removes the material otherwise left by the end mill and a turned edge that allows the tenon to mate cleanly (without using a jig to cut it).

[1st_Kiwi_Nomad (Leith)]

Tail maker does look pretty amazing! Who sits down and programs something like that I mean seriously even if you are stupidly smart that is still some serious hard work.