CNC Joinery

[Dwayne Cromarty]

I am planning to purchase a cnc router this fall, likely a higher end consumer product (likely Axiom Iconic, at this point). One thing that I never seem to see as an option is the ability to clamp and mill materials in a vertical orientation. It seems to me that a wide variety of joinery would be easily done in this manner. I have seen a couple modifications where people have been able to do this sort of thing, but no cnc router that I have seen allows this sort of thing as it ships from the factory.

So, a couple questions, then...

1. Am I just out to lunch with this idea? Would I find after owning and using my cnc that there were simpler, better ways to do this? Just go buy a Wood Rat or something similar and keep it separate from my cnc?

2. Is there a machine with this capability that I have not considered?

3. Is there a specific machine that can be easily adapted to do this, in a practical way and without voiding warranty?

I look forward to your insights. My hope is that I can spend my time doing projects with my machine, rather than spending time building and learning the machine. I am an experienced woodworker and mildly competent with computer and CAD software. CAM and CNC will be completely new to me...

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Cheers!

[Grant Wilkinson]

I can't answer your question about any machines that come stock ready to mill material clamped in a a vertical position. However, there are many youtube videos of CNC router users building their beds so that a portion hinges down. They then clamp the material to the vertical section of the bed and mill into the ends of the board as usual. Frank Howarth, on Youtube, has a couple of particularly good videos on how he did it.

[Tony Joyce]

The system comes standard with a 4’x8′ horizontal table, a 7″x20″ vertical table, and a 79″ 4-axis turning center.

[Jim Becker]

AVID offers that. With fixed table machines, one has to either slot the top and create a fixture to hold the workpiece or have a machine that was set up for a fourth axis for indexed rotary work where the spindle can extend over the side to mill the jointer. Do keep in mind that there are length limitations for vertical milling of joinery on any CNC machine...the distance to the floor comes into play.

There are, of course, methods for milling joinery like dovetails flat, but they are not the "crisp corner" versions that one would typically create with more traditional methods.

I thought about slotting my machine for vertical joinery, but determined I really don't do enough of it to justify the effort. The few dovetails I use are generally hand cut now and I use Domino XL for M&T most of the time.

[Brian Holcombe]

There are dedicated cnc machines for joinery. The difference is that a joinery machine will usually clamp the part very near to the joinery being cut and do so in a way that makes for quick reference.

Aside from that, many manual machines with more basic approaches to automation are extremely fast. As example a Balestrini tenoner cuts a maximum 700 tenons per hour. A Maka can cut mortises at a pace of about 300/hr. I believe the advanced cnc version of these or similar machines have a parts hopper.

[Brad Shipton]

If you have dedicated joinery, then there are specific machines like Brian mentioned. If you are doing door mortises or tenons and want to do on a CNC you use a machining center. You need enough Z axis movement to use aggregates since most of them take up to 6" of vertical with their geometry. If you are doing only 90d cuts you can get aggregates that have drills or saws on all four planes. If you want your head to rotate you need a C-axis. An aggregate starts at about $5k since they are extremely tight tolerance gearboxes. All of this jazz also involves very specific CAM software that is not associated with the entry level industry. There are many practical reasons most 3 axis CNC equipment involves single operation joinery from the top plane.

If you are only looking for dovetails you can look at Gary's website for an example of doing them off the end of the table on a shopbot machine. I suspect they are extremely problematic to do as you will have very limited control against blowout. Anyone that has made dovetail joints using a handheld router and a jig learns quickly where you need to be careful to move the router in certain ways to prevent blowout. To replicate that on a CNC would take a ton of practice to perfect.

[Bruce Walton]

The Digital Wood Carver has an attachment to do vertical joints that you are looking for. See https://www.digitalwoodcarver.com/ac...oint-maker-jig.

[ChrisA Edwards]

If you are working on fairly small pieces, you can do M&T joints using a Shaper Origin and their workstation.

The workstation provides for vertical routing, but you are limited to the length of the bit, for depth, I guess pretty much the same as a gantry CNC. It has vertical alignment stops that can be set unto 45 degrees.

Lots of Youtube videos.

And also for small furniture, a Panto Router will do many compound joints, but this is not a press a button and walk away.

[Rob Young]

If you are working on fairly small pieces, you can do M&T joints using a Shaper Origin and their workstation.

The workstation provides for vertical routing, but you are limited to the length of the bit, for depth, I guess pretty much the same as a gantry CNC. It has vertical alignment stops that can be set unto 45 degrees.

Lots of Youtube videos.

And also for small furniture, a Panto Router will do many compound joints, but this is not a press a button and walk away.

You can do large pieces too but fixturing becomes interesting. On the SO forum there is at least one discussion of hanging the workpiece down off a deck to put tenons on the end of very long rails.

Longest I've done is about 2.5 ft. Bench was tall enough there was no issue with support or clamping. Largest surface I've worked on has been 4x8 to cut out a bunch of parts from a sheet of ply.

The SO has a maximum Z of about 1.7", maybe 1.5" is the effective maximum. If you need to cut deeper you have to play games with longer bit and tricking it's zero offset. But since the SO has only a 1/4" (or 8mm) collet, long bits aren't exactly its strong suit. Longest tenon (and thus mortise) I've done is 25mm (almost 1") using a 1/4" diameter spiral cutter. So sort of on a par with what a Domino can do.

Edit to add : The SO's ability to do box joints still amazes me. You have to fiddle with settings a bit to get the glue gap right for different materials but every time it just nails the fit.

[Michael Hentges]

Fairly comprehensive discussion on CNC joinery options: http://mkmra2.blogspot.com/2014/08/c...d-joinery.html

Haven't used this, but looking at it fairly seriously: http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

Someone has made a custom "gadget" for V-Carve Pro that allows for dovetails with the boards vertical (instead of the out-of-the-box dovetail gadget that does everything horizontal): https://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=34728

I don't happen to have a Leigh dovetail jig, and when all you have is a hammer... - so I'm looking at using the CNC for this need. Feedback I've seen is that most people don't have a good enough means to quickly set up and register boards vertically in the CNC to make this worthwhile. For a one-off need, using something other than a CNC is likely a better way. With volume, the CNC's repeatability would make it an option worth considering (and justify the investment into the learning curve).