Request from a VIP

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
Messages
8,622
Location
Thomasville, GA
I got a request a couple of weeks ago asking if I could make some templates for a Mortise Pal. Never having heard of it, I looked it up and said, "Sure I can." The templates that came with the jig are in 1/2" increments and the VIP needs some in 1/4" increments.

I set up a basic drawing in VCarve while awaiting a sample template from the VIP. A few tweaks to my drawing after going over the sample with my dial caliper, then running a test followed by a couple more tweaks and this is what I produced. Each template measures 5.75" long by 1.4375" wide and is cut from 0.118" polycarbonate (Lexan).


MP_6new_a.jpg MP_6new_b.jpg


If anyone else needs some of these, let me know via PM.
 
Thanks, everyone!


I've been thinking about getting the Mortise Pal. I know a certain VIP in California who swears by it ;)

Something like that is a great application for a cnc. Nice job :thumb:

Mortise Pal, the company, went out of business several years ago, unfortunately.


Nicely done, Bill. One of the great things about CNC is the ability to make multiples after you've done the work on one.:thumb:

Yep. I've done the "multiple" thing by hand in past years - ain't near as much fun!


Wow, nice work on those. I wondered what you were cutting feom your pics I saw the other day ...

Yeah, I guess that was a bit of a preview. Looking back at that post, that piece was test cuts of the 3" sample I received.
 
Well done, bill! All told, how much time do you figure you have in that process?

It took a little over an hour to cut the six templates, with one bit change. One thing I found was I needed to slow down the feed rate to allow the bit time to make a smoother cut.

The initial process of drawing the sample took about 30 minutes, then I had some tweaking that took a few minutes a couple different times. When I thought I had a good accurate cut, my wife found a very slight error that might not have been a problem, but I fixed it before doing the final run. It took about 10 minutes to sand off the tabs.
 
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So it was 2 hours or less. After the process get to be really easy and you know "exactly" what to do - maybe an hour total? Thinking about an hourly rate. Nice chump change for the hobby account. Sorry, my head just goes there. I can't help it.

I know some people that charge $75 - $150 per hour for CNC machine time and about half as much for the design and programming time.

Even at ---- say $30 - $50 per hour - it's pretty nice retirement hobby money.
 
So it was 2 hours or less. After the process get to be really easy and you know "exactly" what to do - maybe an hour total? ...

I really can't speed up the feed rate based on my experience with this item. I've cut plastic before - acrylic, Lumicite, hdpe and was able to use feed rate of 50-60ipm using a single flute 1/8" bit. That was too rough on this polycarbonate. I was getting some chatter and excessive chipping, albeit quite small. I had to use a two flute 1/8" bit running at 20-30 ipm to get what I considered a nice cut. In both cases, the router speed was about 19000rpm (my DWP611 has a range of 16000 to 27000rpm).

So, total time might be 1.5 hours. Of course, since I have this item drawn already for both the original and the new sizes, all I have to do is press the "Go" button.
 
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