The hold-down clamps and screws provided by Inventables for the X-Carve work quite well for most applications but having a pair or two of “bump stops” can speed up the process of clamping down material to the CNC machine waste board and make life a little easier. This is especially true when making production runs, and you wish to quickly change out stock without spending a lot of time undoing/re-doing clamps and such.
I designed a pair of bump stops that I originally made out of MDF. I made them longer than one typically sees, and they have worked out well. I soon discovered they were too long in some cases when I had to position them near the side rails of the machine, so I designed and made another pair that are similar, but shorter than the originals. This time, I used pine rather than MDF.
I have prepared free downloadable plans in pdf format for use with conventional tools (because sometimes it is much faster to use conventional tools, rather than the CNC). The plans are in both Imperial and metric dimensions.
If you would prefer to simply copy the CNC files and use your X-Carve (or other CNC machine), I will upload the files to the Inventables web site “Projects” section. I’ll also provide the link below as soon as it has been published by Inventables. You’ll find the file I have provided on the Inventables site contains files for the original long bump stop version in addition to the newer shorter version shown in this video. I also included a “L” shape bump stop as well.
Link to Inventables Project page for this project: https://www.inventables.com/projects/dtc-bump-stops
Link to free plans download page (for using conventional tools) in both Imperial & Metric dimensions:
https://www.downeastthunder.com/2019/01/diy-bump-stop-for-x-carve-free-plans/
Link to YouTube video: https://youtu.be/vo8aJh5IZOE
