POTD was making some bases for 4 x 6’s for a punching bag stand. My wife and I “train” in a discipline called Savate which is French Kickboxing. I hesitate to call what I do as “training” as at 59 I’m old and slow and have no plans on going into the ring. I’m the definition of awkwardness and lack of grace, but it is a good workout.
The gym we go to recently changed locations with the new site lacking in equipment. My wife drew up a bag stand for punching/kicking bags made from 4 x 6’s, everything held together with deck hangers and 5/16” lag bolts. Deck hangers are designed for deck screws, so all of the appropriate holes were drilled/punched out for the larger 5/16” lags. Didn’t shoot photos of that or the cutting of the 4x6’s to size, used my Delta miter saw for the cutting. Attached a short chunk of 4x6 to the deck hangers for marking/drilling/pre-running the lags in place. The beams were all numbered for easy, quick installation at the gym.
The vertical poles needed bases to set on which was this POTD. Cut 2 x 12’s to length and used my CNC Bridgeport to mill an 1/8” deep pocket to capture the ends of the poles. The bases were lagged to the poles which would probably hold up OK without a milled pocket, but my thought was a mechanical lock around the perimeter of the poles would give a more robust joint.
CNC routine ran pretty quickly. Used a ½” end mill and ran a G-code for milling a rectangular pocket. This particular G-code assumes the cutter starts in the bottom left hand corner. I provided the width, height, step over for each pass and the diameter of the cutter. The routine can also run a finishing pass with different parameters, but for “router” work, the roughing pass was good enough.
I have to admit to still getting a kick out of the hand wheels turning on their own . . . The job went pretty quickly with a feed rate of 80 inches per minute.
Went to my Craftsman 10” table saw to bevel the edges, reduce the chance of stubbed toes. I see another POTD in the works as it’s starting to get really old cranking on the tilt hand wheel of my table saw to set angles. I see an arbor in a cordless drill cranking on the hand wheel in the very near future!
Photos of the final bag stand are below. Our gym is the Michigan Muay Thai Academy in Lansing, MI. Though I am old and slow, there is some stress relief in kicking and punching the crap out of a bag!
Thanks for looking,
Bruce
Don't have a CNC router in my shop, but a Bridgeport CNC mill does a pretty quick job!
Cut bevels on the vertical pole bases on my table saw
Finished bag stand.
Close up of the base boards