Cylinder Clamping Jig

Instructions

Make the cylinder holders (ClampingJigBody) from hardwood first. Plane to a uniform thickness of about 18 mm. The thickness isn't critical, but measure the thickness accurately for when you make the clamping plate (V-Clamping Jig_for Shaper). These holders could also be made from plywood. I used hardwood so it wouldn't deform over time. Cut the plywood plate that mates to the Shaper Workstation second. It is IMPORTANT you modify the slots in this SVG with the exact thickness of the wood used for the cylinder holders. Pocket cut the slots first, gradually working down to a depth of exactly 15 mm. This depth is critical, and the bottom of the slots should not have any ridges. Check the fit of the cylinder holder in the slots. It should be pretty tight, no slop. I used a negative offset of -0.002". If you will be clamping the cylinder the way I have, cut the slots for the clamps. This thickness isn't really critical, it just needs to allow the clamp body to fit through. Switch to the 1/8" bit and cut the holes to allow the jig plate to mate with the vertical alignment pins of the Workstation clamping face. I only use three of the holes/pins in use. Finally, you may want to cut the pocket cut near the top of the jig body. This will accommodate a matching piece of wood to allow a touch off point for the y-axis. Since the edge of the cylinder holders is one inch from the top of the jig, it is too deep to touch off with the inverted bit as normally done. Before the cylinder holders are glued to the pocket-cut slots, press fit the topmost cylinder holder into the jig and mount the jig. I found there wasn't enough clearance to allow the support bar to slide over the top cylinder holder. So I cut down the end of the cylinder holder (see photo) a couple millimeters to give adequate clearance. Once everything is ready, glue to cylinder holders to the plywood plate. It is absolutely critical the cylinder holders fit all the way to the bottom of the slot and are square. So go easy on the glue and be deliberate here. How to Calculate the Center of the Cylinder Accurately measure the cylinder diameter. The radius is half the diameter. Create a grid with two touches on the face of the plate (x-axis) and the third touch at the rightmost edge of the cylinder holder (y-axis). Please refer to the cylinder diagram photo. Notice the center of the cylinder lies on a line in the middle of the angled slot. This line is 60 mm from the edge of the cylinder holder. The radius of the cylinder meets the wall of the angled slot at a right angle (90 degrees). Therefore the cylinder center distance is the length of the hypotenuse of the given triangle. This distance is calculated as: y-distance = Radius/sin(angle/2). The angle of the angled slot is 45 degrees. For example a one inch cylinder (25.4 mm) with a radius of 12.7 mm gives the calculation: y-distance = 12.7 mm / .38268 = 33.187 mm Since you can position an object at an exact position with the Inverness update, you place the object at x = 60 mm and y = -33.187 mm.