Cheap ass tiling jig

[Spamming_Eddie]

Hi folks,

A week or so ago, someone requested a sign that needed to be around 70 inch long (7,5inch wide). When I constructed my mill table, I figured I would need to be able to slide through longer material so I kept the back and front of my mill open and threw a few casters onder the legs of the table to be able to create distancve between the walls and the table if needed.

I made a design the client approved wich included a dedicated cutout to custom shape the sign. Nothing fancy, just a kinda square with rounded ends. It however demanded a jig that would allow me to allign every tile with enough precision to at least be quick glance proof.

So.. I put up my thinking hat and went on to device a way to be able to make big ass signs without breaking the bank. I have looked a bit into youtube and this forum for inspiration, but could not find much to go with.

So I guess I’d share my solution, to maybe inspire others who need to make larger signs than their machine can do in one go.

First: I use V-carve pro 12 to make me a test design. Designing the sign does not deviate much from a normal design.
I did mine horizontal, to keep my neck muscles from cramping, flipped the design vertical and made my toolpaths like you’d normaly do. After that I opened the tiling toolpath manager.

My jig is able to do tiles with a minimum hight of 250mm.
I choose to do 500mm tiles, leaving me with 4 tiles to carve.
I didn’t care if the tiles landed halfway letters because if you test things, test it in it’s extremes.

When saving a toolpath, it will split them into the tiles and save them numbered bottum up. (in my case)

The jig.

I choose to use -waste- strips again (2100mmx50mmx22mm). These are simple trips of pine, spaced 250mm on the bed that get flattened to the machine axis using a simple pocket toolpath and a 22mm mill. After flattening the 4 strips, I pocketed out a sloth on the ends of every strip, as wide as the strip. This to insert a strip that can be used as a fence.

The fence strips get pockets on both sides as wide as a strip and as deep as a strip (minus the fence pocked) at every 250mm along its length, to fit over the flattened strips at any position along its total lenght (2100mm)

To clamp down the sign, I use two strips just outside the tile.
To align a tile I use a strip ontop of both fences as an end-stop and move it to the top pockets to the new position. Align the project to the fence and end stop, bolt it down and start the next tile toolpaths.

And that’s it. That’s the jig.

[gwilki]

@Spamming_Eddie I think the engineer in you is showing.

It looks great. I’ve only done a few tiling projects and my set up pales in comparison to yours. Well done.

[Spamming_Eddie]

Thanks Grant, comming from you makes me proud and walk around with reddish cheeks.

I am interested in your tiling setup. I was under the impression that I made it as simple as could be. You looking at mine as being fancy gives me a deep dark brown feeling it is way off that mark.

I don’t care for looks, I care for the most simple solution out there.

Would you please elaborte more on yours?

[gwilki]

@Spamming_Eddie Talk about “cheap ass”, SE, these videos show how I do it. Mark does tend to go into excrutiating detail, but you can fast forward through much of it. That said, Mark was my go to mentor when I started with VCarve.

Tiling Toolpaths Part 1 – Design, Toolpath, and Save G-Code

Tiling Toolpaths Part 2 – Mounting and Cutting the Project

[Spamming_Eddie]

Jep, that seems to make mine fancy. However, since I don’t have a flattened machine bed, I wont get away with the sliding jig. can’t flatten stock if ya sliding it down an uneven bed.
I’ve sortakinda tried the tape and glue method but half the time my stock is to rough to have tape wanna stick to it. I figured that if it don’t work all the time, I wont go that route, so I went with millions of inserts and wooden clamps.

Good to see other ways to get to Rome. Something to keep in mind if I ever gonna get a cnc with a flat machine bed.

Just found out that my tile jig can second as a glue-up station. You’re right. It’s fancy.

[Spamming_Eddie]

After a complete redecorating of my shop - moving the machine into the whith of the shop, to be able to feed through longer projects and tetrissing the rest of my machines around the cnc, I finaly got the raw sign done.

It’s a 1964mm wide sign out of rough milled padouk (needed flattening on the cnc cause no planer in my shop.) The sign itself isn’t complicated. Vcarve, cutout, roundover. The challenge was to get it done in one piece. I’m bloody proud I figured out a way to do and repeat it, in my cramped space, on my wonkey setup. My longmill can make longsigns! -and if I can do it, everbody can.-

It isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough to not care.

[Rowjr]

Very nice ! I will have to find some inserts first to put into my bed…

[Spamming_Eddie]

Wowww hold yer horses there Robert. You already have a great mechanism to clamp things down. You just incorporate that into something simular. Clamping down the strips doesn’t need you to have inserts. It helps if you are going to use the strips as a tiling jig, but just to hold your stock up from the machine bed.. well, if it’s hold down, it’s hold down.

Keep it as simple as possible.

What if you don’t like the method and want to go back to your smooth wasteboard.

Test twice, fancy once.

[Rowjr]

I’m keeping my table the same and I ended up screwing another piece down as a waste board My thought was putting inserts into that for clamping and jigs for those pieces as my get around to my issue of under sized material and cutting into my good bed…I’d like to make jigs similar to yours eventually but I thought this would give me a chance to think about it a little while before committing to making jigs or what ever…You have been a great inspiration… I appreciate your feed back

[Spamming_Eddie]

Ah yeah, I didn’t thought about that myself. Great thinking, that makes a lot of sence.

Now I need another million inserts!

We inspire eachother. There is only one goal and a ton of roads that lead to it. Finding the road that fits your ideas and personality is as fun and important as reaching the destination.

I like to fill putholes with mud, another wants a well lit smooth highway. There’s no two roads the same. I’m glad I could help you find a section of my road you like. Take what you like and make it yours. I’m proud to have been able to assist.

Now, what was this about inserts.. ah yeah.. use them in jigs aswell! Awesome idea!

[_Michael]

With my spoil board wearing thin and a SLB on the way I’ve been trying to think of improvements I can make to my setup so I appreciate the ideas.

@Spamming_Eddie I can see why you like to make fixtures raising the stock up. I’ve never tried the sea of inserts but I’m sure it would make me pretty nervous about hitting one on through cuts. Of course I could hit my T-tracks but they do sit a bit lower than the MDF strips giving me a little wiggle room. It looks like your inserts are pretty close to the surface to me.

[Spamming_Eddie]

Jojo Michael,

When I “designed” my table, it became clear right in the beginning that with what I wanted and what I didn’t know I wanted yet, the slab I was going to mount my machine on was never going to be the spoil board. So I opted to have it as an bed of inserts and use jigs always.

It’s as crisp as it has been since the day I bought it, minus the paint, greace, oil I managed to impregnate it with through the years. The machine has never managed to make a scratch in it eventhough I tried.

Multiple times.. with passion.

If had became clear a flattened spoilboard was something ai could not get around, It is already in place. It’s my tabletop, the machine slab resides on.

Swap, flatten, go!