1 hour ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Might consider buying a mobile home.

...

 

Coming off a pretty good week as far as projects go.  In between doc visits and errands I milled lumber and made five pic. frames and applied finish to three of them.  Two without finish are still at the glass shop.  During cold mornings I have managed to get most of my Christmas shopping done, and may actually finish that job today or tomorrow.  Supposed to be quite warm today, this afternoon I have a new carb to r&r on my lawn tractor/bagger.  I've also gotten a pretty good start on mirror designs.  Forecast is for it to be rainy tomorrow, it may be a good day to stay inside and try and finish those up.

Good news looking into next week... scheduled to get a shot in my back Monday AM.  If that works as well as the last one I should actually be up and running with minimal discomfort during the holidays   I've been off all the normal meds for a week now, it's made for an uncomfortable week for sure.

Was a good weekend in the shop, finished up an MFT addition to the workbench and some accessories. and turned a bunch of blanks for a friend who is hand carving harry potter wands for kids.  

The MFT stuff is actually really interesting and I am having a lot of fun with it.  This is the first major project I have done with the Shaper Origin and it has been a real learning experience.  If I were starting a shop from scratch today, I would really have to debate the conventional wisdom about the table saw being the heart of the shop.  Particularly when an MFT and the right tools can be a more effective solution in a lot of cases.

With a track saw you can do ripping and crosscutting functions easily and accurately especially if you are breaking down sheet goods.  You can also do nearly anything you can achieve with a sliding compound miter saw.  

 

That cam lever reminds me.   I went back to the shop I'd been teaching in to retrieve whatever personal items I'd left there. There was a student I didn't recognize using one of the small CNCs I had overseen.  He was cutting out as many small parts he could from a board on one of them.  The parts were for a desk organizer designed by a student in a product design course.  The project had been chosen to be a mass produced project to sell to visitors who would be there during the upcoming open house.  Whomever  took over supervising use of those CNCs had made a few cams to use with the t-track bed to hold the board in place.  I had stopped using cams as a good upcut bit pushed a bit too fast can usually pull the board up which leads to a ruined board.  I'd left several low profile clamps I made in the drawer under the control PC because they both held the side in place and the top down during cuts.  When the whole top of a board was being cut I used two mating shallow wedge boards (also in the drawer).  One bolted into the t-track, and one tapped in to wedge the project board against a straight board bolted down on the opposite side. Some sandpaper stuck to the face of the wedge block and the opposing block and I never had a piece pull up. The wider area of the wedge compared to the single point of contact from the cam made a big difference. 

 

As for using cam levers with the Shaper Origin I see no problem as you are holding the board down with the router itself.   

4D    

That was something I had considered when designing this and with a traditional gantry type CNC I would be worried about this.
I was actually worried that the vibration would loosen the cams as well but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Pulling the piece up with a spiral upcut or o-flute hasn’t been an issue at all.  Remembering to leave tabs when I am cutting to avoid parts moving has been a little bit of an issue though.  I just have to remember that nothing is stuck down with tape.