For those of you with the new 5.1 base supports with the threaded front and back face holes, what kinds of things have you come up with for full-sheet supports? I’ve got a 4x2 machine, but any solutions should be applicable to either the 4x2 or 4x4. I was just about to design something or the other to print, but then thought I’d just check to see if anything cool has already been invented.
-Mark
Are you asking about support for the portion hanging over the edges or clamping for the portion on the bed? It wasn’t clear from your post to me.
I’m talking about clamping a sheet of MDF or ply to the bed. A 2’ x 4’ sheet of MDF, for example, is actually a bit narrower than my slats (which are 25" long) – but not narrow enough to fit any kind of normal work holding clamps (like the ones Carbide3D sells in their kit). There is only about a 1/2" of T-track available at the front and back. The new base supports, with threaded M6 holes on the faces of the back and front supports, offer up another mechanism to mount work holding clamps of some sort. I was just wondering if anybody had designed any clamps that they liked for the purpose of holding down “full” sheets (either 2x4 or 4x4, depending on their machine) using those newly-available mounting holes in the new 5.1 base supports.
Good idea. A bed extension effectively.
If you are in a hurry you could take a cheap and quick route. Mount a 2x4 and put some threaded inserts for the clamps to attach to.
In the X axis it still seems like it will be a problem. Having holes tapped into the vertical surface of the side rails would allow clamps to be mounted vertically but put pressure downward. I don’t know how feasible that is, my 5.1 is still in boxes in the garage.
We do have an area specifically for workholding:
(which arguably is where this post should have been moved to)
which had this post which you may find of interest:
Interesting. Although that solution only works if the material is not overhanging. That probably covers most of the use cases. And from that I see that my earlier side rail comment was stupid.
Ages ago, I bought some steel bar stock intending to make a Teez-Nutz alternative (Tee-bars?) which would afford two options:
it’s a pretty obvious solution, something like:
The pictures in the post show it working when material is overhanging.
You mention mdf. Are you aware mdf sheets are oversized and not 48x96?
True. But barely overhanging.
Didn’t see the ‘Workholding’ topic area before you mentioned it here. Yep, that’s where I should have posted my question. Thanks for the link – that’s a decent solution even if it’s not what I asked about exactly. 
-M.
Moved.
Could you post a photo showing the stock on the machine and the specifics of the difficulty you are having?
