Re: part holding

I use a little Sherline at the moment, but found the following to be
useful:

I made a sacrificial milling plate out of aluminium, mounted it down
to the table, then drilled holes at every 1cm junction. I made these
just the right size to tap, so whenever I need a hole I'll just tap
it if it's not tapped already. I also cut flats in the initial cut,
and these allow me to use an edgefinder to align my spindle - that
way I have a very good idea where work will be placed, and I can bolt
a piece of work down, mill one side, flip it and mill the other with
pretty good repeatability. My current plate is 1/2", but in future
I'll use 1" thick. Make the holes deep.

I also clean up the plate so it's milled nice and level to start
(since extruded materials usually have some warp/uneven surface).
What's nice about this is that setup is that I don't need to put
something underneath my work.. I'll accumulate a whole bunch of
<0.1mm nicks in the table, and finally when it bothers me, just plane
it all of flat again. :)

Bolts are the best for holding it down, I find you can make your life
even easier by drilling a second hole, so that the bolt head actually
goes down into the stock and there's nothing to catch a cutter in
rapid on. Usually, only 2 bolts are even needed to hold stock down,
but 3 or 4 is good practice.

Finally, these two clamps (on the Sherline website) are the most
useful things you can create!

http://www.sherline.com/tip3.htm << fantastic! Especially for
flycutting, and amazingly powerful at holding something down.

http://www.sherline.com/tip5.htm << you need these also

..finally, something simple I made, is just a piece of long flat
material, with a groove down the center. A "strap clamp", like this:
http://www.abbykatt.co.uk/Technology/WebSized/DCP00731.jpg

It may bend, and look bad, but it actually does a fab job of holding
something down temporarily. Indespensible tools. Before I had these
guys, the pain, the agony, the anguish! (and broken tools etc).

My 2p (3.6c) :)