On 8/16/2010 7:15 AM, Ignoramus28874 wrote:

Someone must have already invented a good scheme for doing so, any
ideas?

Really hard to offer specific advice from a vague part description. But
if the part has two parallel sides and is not too thin with respect to
it's XY dimensions, consider using thicker material and machining 5
sides. Flip over, clamping on the now machined sides, and face to
thickness.
I've always tried to use the absolute minimum amount of material
possible, but some one-off parts I'm doing right now, I decided to use
this approach as to do otherwise would require multiple setups.

If you factor the additional cost for thicker material vs the extra
labor for stopping, moving or adding/removing clamps, it can be quite a
savings. If I hadn't already faced all the parts to thickness, I'd take
a picture to show this clearly. It is btw, how a lot of production
machining is done. Hmm, but I did still have the last profile in CAD, I
just did a solids extrusion and output a GIF file. I'll email it direct.


Jon