Low profile mill clamps

A

aliva

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Just lurking around on Blondehacks YouTube She made a couple of clamping blocks for her her small bench top mill. I thought it was a great idea and a fun little project. So I made 6 of them . Their mild steel, 1/2 thick x 1/1/2 long x 1 1/4 width 2 1/4 20 set screws and a modified 1/2 x 13 socket head cap screw, and a snap ring to capture the cap screw. The flexure slot is 3/16. I blackened them with Casswell's cold bluing. Also the side that sits on the mill table has been under cut by .010 for clearance. You can see that in pic 320200619_123028.jpg20200619_123119.jpg20200619_123222.jpg
 
Nice. Took me a couple minutes to figure how they work but then I twigged. I like the concept, and indeed low-profile.

-frank
 
Beautiful work!

That blue is so black. Looks great!
-brino
 
Nice job! I wonder if there should be a recess for the snap ring to allow the clamp to sit flat on the milling table? Perhaps I am not seeing something right...
 
The clamps are positioned above T-slots of the milling table, secured to the T-nuts below with the cap screws. The snap rings shouldn't be a problem unless they're oversized enough to span the T-slots.
 
Do they work similar to the Mytee-Bites ??
 
If I remember correctly, Mytee-Bites work by leveraging downward on the edge of the workpiece.

Note the setscrews in @aliva's blocks. You hold the block against the edge of the workpiece and lock it down to the table with the SHCS. Then you tighten tighten the setscrews. The "wings" are forced against the workpiece, holding it in X or Y (depending on where the block is located). Friction between the "wing" and the edge of the workpiece secures it in Z.
 
If folks like those low-profile workholders, head on over to Harold Hall's web pages. He shows a number of variations. Mounted on a faceplate, they can be handy for lathe work too. I made some simpler ones that mount on a tooling plate I DIY'd for my mill. For those I didn't use the "wings", just used screws and some scrap alu between them and the work to avoid marring it.
 
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