Jig makers

[Jeff Chumbley]

I was wondering if there was anyone who could assist me in making a jig to engrave the attached base. It's 9 x 5 x 1 3/4 tall. I need to engrave on the 2 long beveled edges. There could be 20 at a time but for now am just looking for a direction to start. I measured the angle to be 50* to make the surface that needs to be engraved flat. Just don't really know where to go from here.
There seems to be an easy answer but then when i think about how to set it up in Corel to do the actual engraving it starts to rattle me a bit, especially since everything has to be centered.
Any ideas?

Thanks
Jeff

[Shaddy Dedmore]

Have you made one of the boxes seen here a while back? Maybe assemble a finger jointed box with 50° (or 40°, not sure what you measured) angle for a side. Then lean the base up against it. Or, make a longer box, with that angle cut into 2 sides, and when you place the base in the groove it the edge should be parallel to the bed.

I can sketch something up if I didn't explain. But this is just in my head, I haven't tried it before. But it should work for one at a time, you might be able to do something to make multiple though

Shaddy

[Robin Lake]

Jeff --

The simplest solution is a holder comprised of three elements. A long vertical that would hold the base up at the proper angle to be engraved, a short vertical for the lower edge of the base to rest against, to keep it from slipping, and a horizontal tying the two verticals together. Viewed from the end, it would be sorta like an "L" with a lip rising upwards from the right edge of the horizontal stroke.

This would be an easy item to make on a table saw. Make the long vertical just a little high, and trim to perfection. You could make it as long as your table is wide, to hold multiple bases. You could build more than one to engrave several rows at a time.

Good luck!

Robin

[Joe Pelonio]

With a 50 degree angle on the piece you need to cut a jig with a 40 degree angle to make 90. The jig needs enough surface area to become a base laying flat on the laser, then use clamps or masking tape to hold them together so the engraving area is level. The difficult part is getting it positioned for the laser to engrave in the right place since the part to be engraved is up. So next take two pieces of 1/8" acrylic and glue them together in a perfect 45 degree L shape, then stand it up in the upper left (0,0 position). Asuming it's tall enough to put the edge of the engraving area into the acrylic's corner, just add 1/8" to the x and y positions in Corel to get it centered. Since the bottom of the engraved area will be at the back of the laser you will have to rotate the text 180 degrees in Corel (print upside down). Hard to explain in words I guess, maybe someone has a simpler solution and hopefully I remember my geometry.

[Nick Adams]

Maybe something like attached image out of wood or acrylic. This is a side view. But just need it so that you can add in flat pieces between 2 of these and glue it together, drop bases in it, and engrave.

All of the "empty slots would require a flat piece of acrylic or wood, your fabrication material of choice.

[Nick Napier]

When you figure out how to place the base you could put a couple of layer of masking tape on the surface and do a test "engrave" with low power (emphisis on low) to actually see where the laser is actually putting things.

Nick Napier

[Barbara Buhse]

ok, if I'm correct about what your asking, try making this out of a block of wood... if your bevel is 40* then your top angle needs to be 50* ...
the bottom angle on the lip doesn't matter, as long as it holds your piece from slipping off...
If your jig comes to a sharp point at the top, you shouldn't need to worry about centering, since your top surface will still measure 1 3/4".

Barbara

[Jeff Chumbley]

Sorry for the delay,, I have been down with this NASTY flu bug. Due to the size of the base that I was trying to engrave I had to make a sled with a lip along the top ruler as a pivot point. Then used a desk wedge to hold it up so the surface that I was engraving is level. I can make a more permanent jig to hold the piece/pieces for future jobs. I moved the XY home to the upper left corner of the area to engrave.

The only problem I had was when I did the text in Corel I made the desktop size the same as the engraveable area. This was not working when I sent the job to the laser. So I changed the desktop size to my laser bed size 24 x 12 and put the text in the upper left hand corner and things ran fine.

I have to meet with the customer this week to see if he wants to proceede with this project.

Jeff