# 4th axis fixture



## alloy (Feb 20, 2015)

This is something we came up with at work.

We have a number of parts we make on our 4th and needed a way to hold the parts other than in a 3 jaw chuck.

There is just so much wasted material  that we have to machine off the blank when using a chuck.  So after some brainstorming we came up with this dovetail fixture.

There is very little material wasted with this setup.

This is one of 6 VMC's I set up and run.


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## gt40 (Mar 12, 2015)

Took me a second to get it, but that is totally awesome.  Thanks for sharing.   Just curious, what is the part for?


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## alloy (Mar 12, 2015)

It's called a universal link. Used to attach a 20k capacity cargo hook to a sikoursky helicopter. 

We make cargo hooks and weighing systems for all kinds of helicopters. 

Take a look at onboardsystems.com


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## alloy (Mar 25, 2015)

Another part I worked on today on the the axis dovetail fixture.





	

		
			
		

		
	
 3


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## bpratl (Mar 26, 2015)

Impressive, very nice setup.


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## alloy (Mar 26, 2015)

Thank you. 

It works pretty well. Before we had 4 setups on the second op. And we battled tolerance stack. Each op had a tolerance and we tried to get everything within .002, but you times that by 4 and that adds up to. 008, which is over our .005 tolarance. 

Even as well as I works, one tool is dependent on the tool before, and when one tool breaks the machine just keeps going and breaks the rest of the tools. 

That just happened and took out a very small collet extension for a. 025 drill.  (The only one we had) 

This is the first time making this part on the 4th,  so when the new tool comes in I'm going to leave op stop on and check every tool for breakage before letting it go to the next one. 

Some days everything goes great, others aren't so great. But today is my Friday so that is a good thing. Tomorrow I'll head over to Jim's and do more work on my mill retrofit.


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