Here is a workshop problem with a surprisingly simple fix: 3D print the CNC clamps you expect your router bit to destroy, instead of buying them over and over. The plastic is cheap, the prints take minutes, and a collision that would ruin a metal clamp leaves your bit untouched.
CNC clamps (Credits: How-To Geek)
Anyone who machines wood on a CNC knows the dilemma. You need to hold material down firmly, but the usual options all have a catch. Metal clamps work well until the bit meets them, at which point the bit often loses. Screws hold material down too, but they create the same collision risk. Plastic clamps solve the problem, because a spinning bit can pass straight through plastic without being damaged.
Why 3D Printed CNC Clamps Beat Buying Them
The catch with plastic clamps used to be supply. Buying injection-moulded clamps again and again gets expensive and annoying, especially when they are designed to be sacrificed. Printing them at home changes the maths completely. The filament for a single clamp costs pennies, and a batch of twelve can be printed overnight, ready on the build plate by morning.
Each clamp takes only about 15 to 20 minutes to print, so a full plate can be produced while you sleep instead of waiting on a delivery. When one gets chewed up in a cut, you simply grab another from the shelf and keep working. There is no ordering, no waiting and no guilt about destroying a part, because destruction is the whole point.
Print Your Own Clamps and Stop Settling for Retail Stock
Printing your own also removes the limits of retail stock. When buying clamps, you are restricted to whatever retailers happen to sell in plastic. If a design only exists in metal, you either skip it or accept the risk to your bits. With a 3D printer, major companies’ clamp files are often freely available online, so you can print the design that fits your machine and your work, not just the one a shop stocks.
The wider lesson is one makers return to again and again: a 3D printer earns its keep not only on impressive showpiece prints, but on the unglamorous consumables that keep a workshop running. Toys and prototypes are fun, but a box of sacrificial clamps, printed for pennies and replaced without a second thought, may be the most practical thing your printer ever makes. If you run a CNC, start with a batch of twelve and see how quickly you wonder why you ever bought them.
Also Read: Woodworkers Already Solved Your 3D Printing Design Problems — Steal These Two Tricks
Source: How-To Geek — read the full story there.
