Machined Display Plate and Fixture
Overview
Completed Spring 2024
This project was a graduation gift for my boss at the machine shop I worked at in college. It is a 9.5x11.5x4.5 in aluminum plate with the inscription: “Everyone brings joy to this office, some when the enter and others when they leave” on the front and the names of the graduating class on the back. The part was programmed in Fusion 360 and machined on a Haas VF4 CNC mill. This was a fun project because while it seemed like a simple design it was more challenging than I expected to work with a piece of stock that large and thin. I ended up making a custom fixture plate to hold the part in between operations, which can be seen below. To do the front engraving I used a 1/4” chamfer tool but modeled a .008” diameter tip on the tool in Fusion 360. This allowed me to use a 2D pocket toolpath on the letters, and I’m very happy with how they turned out.
Fixturing
I was lucky enough to find a large piece of scrap mic-6 aluminum plate to use for my fixture. While the ground surface was a little dinged up it was still more than adequate for the cosmetic tolerances of this project. The edges of the plate were pretty rough as it had been both waterjet and saw cut off of another larger piece. My first step was to clamp onto the nicest edges of the plate and square off the saw cut faces to give me a good reference. During this step I also machined all of the locating details for the plate so they would be true to the references. I was then able to turn the plate in the vice and clean up the last two sides. The plate holds the part using three Mitee-Bite clamps and locating rails. The plate bolts down into the t-slots of the mill table, and the WCS is established using a bore in the front corner of the plate. There are two set of holes for the clamps so that the same fixture can be used for both operations required on the part.
