Coaster Jigs

-

They may not look like a lot but jigs like this can be pivotal to the success of a large project like the 100 coasters I made yesterday. If you're going to be doing anything 100 times it's worth spending a few minutes considering how you can make each step smoother to cut down on assembly time. Here are just a few questions you want to think about and if you answer 'Yes' to any of them you probably want to make yourself a jig. Thankfully the laser cutter is particularly good at making jigs for parts as well as the parts themselves.
  • What is the most efficient order for assembly?
  • Do parts have to be specifically aligned to each other?
  • Where does the glue have to go and are there places where the glue shouldn't go?
  • How do you remove the part from the jig once it is assembled?
These coasters break down into 2 parts of 3 layers each. The inner triangle has a middle layer that is smaller than the outer layers, this means it needs to be aligned perfectly in the centre and because it is on the reverse side of the cutting we can't just draw registration marks.


The first jig is designed for gluing the middle layer to one of the outer layers. It is a stepper tray, the smaller piece sits right at the bottom and the larger piece sits on top of it, the two parts are held in position until the glue dries. The glue is applied to the smaller part, this is because we don't want any overflow around the edge of the larger part, applying glue to the smaller side means that it is going to stay between the two pieces. It was easiest to run all these parts together in a single batch of 100, this means the glue will have dried before we try to use the part again in the second jig. 


The second jig holds all the pieces for final assembly. The outer square is built up in 3 layers again but the middle layer is thinner this time to allow it to sit in the groove around the edge of the triangle. 
The newly glued part is aligned in the middle of the jig by a corresponding 'V' shaped layer, this just squares the piece up and ensures it isn't in the way of the outer layers. Glue is again applied to the narrow bottom layer to glue spillage and the middle layer is installed as 4 separate pieces. These pieces overlap onto the triangle. The top layer is glued down to form the outer frame work and finally the top triangle is glued into place (and aligned by eye) to secure the triangle into the frame. The newly formed coaster can be poked out of the jig using the hole in the bottom. The whole process took about 3 minutes.

Popular posts from this blog

Wiring the Ruida Controller

-
Image
The RDC6442G controller from Ruida This is going to be quite an image heavy post describing the rewiring needed to convert between the Leetro controller and the Ruida controller. It is also pretty straight forward on the old Just Add Sharks laser cutters because all of the wires are clearly labelled. The controller was prepared in the previous step in order to make this conversion process as smooth as possible. The Leetro (Pad03) panel on the left and the Ruida panel on the right The view from inside the laser looking up at the control panel The control panel is an easy place to start, both panels have just a single cable that runs down to the controller, both panels are a very similar size, with the Ruida panel being slightly smaller underneath so it will fit in the hole left behind easily. The Pad03 panel clips into place so you'll need to reach up inside the machine to work the clips loose. The cable runs down the inside of the laser and is cable tied onto mounti
Read more

Laser Cut Cryptex

-
Image
This is my laser cut cryptex. It features 28 different characters and 9 rings, giving a total possible 10.5 Trillion different combinations. I took a bit of time developing the design so that I could add some nice features. This cryptex file is laid out so that you can have any number of rings in your own design. The best feature is that the codeword is changeable, each locking ring has an outer letter ring that can be placed in any one of the 28 different positions. Once the rings are back in place the ring locking bars can added and they prevent the rings from being modified until the box is open again. It's a bit hard to explain so I made a video showing how it all work ( svg here ) It took a long time to assemble this so I lived with my initial design choices but if I were to remake it I would adjust the file to make the ring locking bars out of 6mm ply and maybe put some blind holes onto the code rings to prevent the code being brute forced.
Read more

Rainbow Puzzle Box

-
Image
This is a binary sequence puzzle box built from 3mm birch plywood, it uses a Gray code pattern to ultimately align all the dials into a rainbow pattern before the lid can be removed. It's actually a redesign of a puzzle inside Loki's box of Tricks  because I thought it would make a cool stand alone puzzle box. The files are available for sale in my Etsy store . ( svg here ) The puzzle consists of five interlocking disks that can only rotate when the disks either side of it are in the correct position to allow it. The large wheel in the middle and the disks on the underside of the lid further restrict the rotation of the disks. The large wheel must be pointed to the disk that is being rotated and the large wheel is in turn restricted from pointing to the smaller disks depending on alignment. Once all the disks are aligned into the full rainbow the large wheel is completely free to rotate and can be turned to the edge of the box and allows the lid to be removed. There is a very
Read more