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Introduction
A gusset is a flat piece of material—usually made from aluminum, polycarbonate, or steel—used to reinforce and connect two or more structural members at an angle, most commonly in robot frames or mechanisms. In FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition), gussets are essential for building strong, rigid, and modular robot structures. Gussets are typically bolted or riveted to parts like aluminum box tubing, C-channel, or extrusion. Teams use them to join parts at common angles (like 90° or 45°) while maintaining alignment and strength.
In this activity you will use the Shope Sabre CNC router to cut 2 Short T Gussets
The following tutorial assumes that you have already powered on the machine. If you have not done that, you can follow along with the startup tutorial found here:
Shop Sabre Operating Procedures
Once the Router is on work through the following steps to route 2 L shaped gussets.
Step 1: Board Setup
Place the board you intend to CAM with, make sure it has the correct dimensions for the cut, and make sure the plate isnt crooked.
Put Screws into all 4 corners of the plate, use the drill underneath the monitor to make holes, then the driver to put in the screws.
Drill setup
Find the correct size drill bit for your CAM (its usually 5609 for bores and 5625 for contours) and get a wrench with an orange grip and a short wrench
Pull the orange wrench left, and the short one right, be careful with how much force you exert, and have the drill lowered so it doesn't break if it falls. the last bit can be loosened with your hands to minimize risk of damage to the drill
remove the drill bit from the holder, then put in the correct drill bit, then tighten the bit back into the router with the 2 wrenches by pulling the wrenches in the opposite directions.
after fastening the new drill bit, press the tool HT button twice to adjust the shopsabre to the new bit.
Move the drill bit close to the bottom left screw on the plate, a little up and the right of the screw to set XY Zero.
(be VERY careful with this step) to set the Z Zero, go close to the bottom of the plate on slow, then set speed to .001, and lower the drill while shuffling a sticky note underneath. stop lowering the drill when the sticky note is caught by the drill, then set Z Zero. Caution is especially important in this step, damage to the plate or drill is very easily caused.
Toolpath Setup
Now that the drill and plate are set up, you can begin setting up the toolpath.
First, make sure that the USB is plugged into the computer and that it has your cam files.
Then click the file button on the shopsaber controller, and find the files leading to your toolpath. first open up the contour file to check that the path stays within the plate.
move the drill over where the green outline shown on the shopsabre controller. you can see where the drill is on the controller with the red dot.
After checking the contour, switch to the bore file, and click on the green start button to begin the bore. Keep your hand close to the emergency stop button if somethig goes wrong.
Once the bore is done, place screws into some of the bore holes, so that the piece does not fidget or fly away during the contour.
Once the screws are in, switch to the contour file and click on the start button.
Once the contour is done, remove the screws from the piece, and put them back where you got them. take out your piece, then vacuum the plate to get the metal shavings off of the board.
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