Material Hold-down when flattening entire surface

[rnicolson (Ryan Nicolson)]

Here is a reply i made a while ago about what I like to do. I have since started using the L bracket as well but depending on the situation I really like to run an operation to have the CNC create holes that match my threaded inserts in my table and then use those holes to hold down the part for the actual machining.

Material hold-down ideas

I really like to carve out hold downs that match the screw placement in the waste board. What I do is cut the stock slightly larger than needed for the piece. When designing the piece I will start with a grid pattern file that matches the threaded inserts in my waste board. See the image below. This is setup so that it is ready to carve out any of the holes I leave behind. The smaller inner hole goes all the way through or very close to the bottom of the material and the larger hole goes in abou…