ideas for clamping to Sherline Mill

[chriscam]

Hi Guys, I have my new Sherline 5400 mill and have fitted the Sherline 4 inch by 10 inch aluminum tooling plate to the table. I would like to clamp a 4.5 inch wide clock plate to this work plate so I can use the boring head to cut a hole in it.This means the brass clock plate must be raised a little . What ideas or options are there to do this. The aluminum work plate has many 10-32 holes in it and my initial thoughts are to simply get some aluminium angle bracket and drill holes / slots to accommodate my plate. Can plastic / wood be used for such clamping purposes and is there a low profile bench clamp any one can recommend/

Regards
Chris

[SteveM]

The tooling plate is made out of aluminum so that it can be sacrificial, if needed - you clamp the work directly to the plate and let the milling cutter cut the work and into the plate.

If you are trying to save the plate, you, as you realize, need to suspend it above the plate.

You can make small blocks, all the same thickness, and use them as spacers and use clamps to hold the clock plate on the spacers to the tooling plate. Just make sure that none of the blocks will get hit by the cutter, not because you will damage the blocks, but because it will deflect the cutter.

If you had a ring larger than the hole diameter, that would be great. Bearing races make great milling spacers because they are very accurately ground.

Steve

[tornitore45]

Parallel laid flat. Masonite is exceptionally parallel. Medium density Fiber board works too. If a purist thinks wood is not precise enough a 1/2 degree parallelism error (which is unheard of in that kind of product) on a 1/8" thick plate translate into 0.0011 error.

Hold down clamp made of 1/8" steel angle (bed frames). Cut down one of the sides to clamp parallel the common sheet thickness you use. Make many, of various sizes.