Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
I need to hold a piece of aluminium bar to my machine bed for milling. This bar is ~50mm x 50mm x 700mm. This would seem like a common problem so I'm probably over-looking an obvious solution.
I need to machine all of the top face so I can't clamp it down on top. If I do this in a vice then I figure I may need at least 3 vices to give the required rigidity. I only have a single vice and am keen to avoid the expense of buying more.
I think I need some sort of edge-clamping method ideally and I've been looking at edge-clamps/toe-clamps/mitee-bite type fixings but for some reason there doesn't seem to be much availability of those in the UK or at least they are very expensive. The other issue with them is that they seem to clamp parallel with the bed-slots where as I would need them to apply pressure perpendicular to the slot (because the bar will run parallel with the slots).
Thanks for reading and I'd welcome all suggestions!!
Cheers