Vertical Workholding?

[mharper90 (Matt Harper)]

I’m toying with the idea of adding vertical work holding to my Shapeoko XXL. The first purpose of this to me would be efficiently and accurately milling recessed hand holes in the ends of cutting boards that I sell.

My machine doesn’t sit over the edge of my table, but I have enough room to mill a hole in the tabletop at least large enough for cutting boards (thickness wise), but also with a couple inches to spare. Because I don’t want a hole in my table at all times, and I don’t want to block the ability to store things under the table, I want to make my work holding solution removable and then I can drop a plug into the tabletop hole.

At some point I had seen some removable (think right angle jig) solutions that mount to the spoil-board via threaded inserts and then hang over the front to provide some clamping options. I did a quick search and can’t find them again here. Before I reinvent the wheel, does anyone have any input, pictures, ideas that they could send this way?

[Julien]

@WillAdams has a vertical workholding design up on CutRocket:

Fixture for cutting vertical joints

(but that’s for front-side mounting, and I understand you would rather cut an opening inside the machine area?)

[mharper90 (Matt Harper)]

I’ll take a look at that! Thanks!

I’m not trying to cut into the machine area itself. I want to cut a hole in my table that is just forward of the black steel edge plate.

This isn’t a great picture, but all I have right now. There is just enough room between the front of the machine and the front metal apron of the Kreg table to clear the max forward cutting area of the Shapeoko plus about 2 inches.

[Julien]

Ha, then it’s still relevant.

I believe @LiamN also has a vertical wokrholding jig on his machine so he could comment

And @RichCournoyer has a great vertical workholding setup too, it’s visible in this post

[LiamN (Liam Newcombe)]

Here’s a post where I described what I liked and didn’t like about my first attempt at vertical workholding, there’s some mistakes you can avoid

Mod Questions for my XXL Table

The two issues with that are maintaining the rigid stable alignment of the shapeoko rails and keeing the workpiece mounting rigid and trammed with the machine as you move it. You’d need to properly constrain the moving table in X and Y as well as the Z with the leadscrews, like a lifting knee on an old Bridgeport. That’s quite a bit of engineering to get right as you’re basically adding another axis. That said, I’d like to see it if you build it. If you mean the vertical fixture jig, there’s …