Flipping Parts

The 3-axis CNC machine is biased towards one sided milling. Milling two-sided pieces can be made much simpler through the use of jigs. Jigs also facilitate the mass fabrication of objects on the CNC table. Why do you need to mill two sides of the stock? You can create joinery for complex objects, you could create panels that are doubly curved, or there's the potential to create objects that have two finish faces.

This example will look at how jigs were used to facilitate two sided milling for fabrication of the table legs of a QuaDror table.

Setting up the part:

This tutorial begins with you having the object fully modeled in Rhino and oriented flat on the xy plane. We're going to duplicate the object and rotate it so there are two objects with each side facing up. It is helpful to know the distance that these two objects are displaced from each other.

Milling notes - consider tabbing the part if it wont be resting on the table after the final cut

Setting up the jig:

The process of designing the jig is relatively straightforward. The primary concern is alignment. Making sure you can place the jig on the spoil board in the same place with respect to the 0,0 point in the rhino model is extremely important as well as ensuring that you can align the stock to the jig.

The first step is to use the reference points defined in the previous step. An easy way to do this by doing a 'Save As' on the file you created the geometry in and removing the extraneous geometry. The jig in this example was created by rough cutting and stacking mdf on top of each other. The rough geometry was then brought into rhino, and the CNC was used to cut the part to the precise dimensions we needed (tip - you can create an irregularly shaped box stock by using the 'Stock from Selection' command.

The tool-paths we ran on the jig were; once along the raised face so we had a straight face to press the board to, a surfacing path along the bottom of the jig so we knew the elevation of the piece precisely, and guide holes for the jig to spoil board and the jig to the part.

Milling the object:

Because of all the prep work we've done, the actual milling of the piece is pretty straightforward. We first run the jig locator tool path and mark on the table where we should place the jig. We place the jig on the table and secure the stock to it. We mill the first side and make sure that included in this tool path is a way to locate the part on the jig when we flip the stock. Depending upon how the part is set up, you might need to include tabs in the part so it stays attached during the mill process. We flip the part, and locate it using the guide holes and run the tool path for the second side. If you've tabbed the part, you'll need to take the piece into the wood shop to cut the piece out.

And the final result is...