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Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
Bill Schwab
 
Posts: n/a
Default Clamping question

Hello all,

The metal and acrylic guard that I have been building is almost done.
One of the plastic pieces needs some redesign, but I put the whole mess
togther yesterday, and it could have been a lot worse. The parts fit
togher w/o fudging (which I am able to do "easily" now, thanks to you
guys - thanks!!!!) and the completed gizmo actually fit on the computer
it protects. I was sweating the latter point because some of the
measurements required some imagination and guesswork.

While certainly not the most difficult part, the thing that gave me the
most difficulty was clamping a 6 inch steel angle bracket. The ascii
below shows holes (no sweat) and the annoying part which was a 0.25 inch
notch on the inside of one edge; without that, I would have thrown it in
my vise on parallels with a stop to the left. I finally put it on the
table on v-blocks turned on their sides; the notches in the blocks
helped provide drilling clearance, and it worked out fairly well.


+----------------+
| 0 ____ 0 |
| +--/ \--+
| 0 |
| |
| 0 |
| |
| |
+----+

How would _you_ clamp it? I have one 90 degree angle plate that I
bought for some vertical setups I expect to do in the near future, but
it was a little big for this job. I am thinking of a setup that would
use a smaller 90 degree angle as one (back) stop and another stop to the
left, and perhaps the same blocks underneath with clamps holding the
work in place.

Thinking of much higher precision than is needed here, how concerned
should I be about the work moving away from the stops when I tighten the
clamps?

If all goes well, I will be able to avoid making the notch by simply
moving the whole mess a little further away from the thing it protects.

Bill