Shapeoko 3 XXL help?

Note that finger (well, box) joints require a vertical fixture at the front of the machine — I worked one up ages ago:

but am disenchanted, either w/ my clunky fixture, or the entire concept — cutting traditional joinery on the machine requires at a minimum 3 setups:

  • cut parts to size and machine internal features
  • mount all 4 boards in pairs in the correct orientation on the machine/fixture and machine joints at two corners
  • reposition all 4 boards and cut the opposite corners

We’ve tried a bunch of other techniques:

and I’ve been working on various designs:

and see the pages on joinery at:

I’ve pretty much dialed things in w/

The bamboo pencil cup had joinery so tight that when I clamped it up for a test fit, I couldn’t get it apart:

which I need to finish writing up/documenting — the issue is one of balancing the size of a V endmill against number of passes w/ a V endmill — the former can be a budget and spindle capacity issue, the latter gets tedious to draw up and arrange toolpaths for (in the current Carbide Create).

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