Hey guys, a little help needed here!

I build drones out of wood and I normally use .5" square wooden dowels as booms to mount the motors to. I’ve been thinking about changing to .50" round dowels. To use the round dowels I’ll need to machine a couple of flat areas on the dowels. Now that said, I’m wondering how to set it up. I use Charlie’s x,y,z zeroing block and it’s going to be hard to balance the block on a round dowel and get true readings for work zero. Any and all ideas, or thoughts are welcome. Possible ideas for a jig to use or anything that comes to mind! Thanks in advance! Greg

I’d machine the flats and then trim the dowels to length.

Lay 2 dowels side by side and then your plate on that.

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I’ll try that, thanks!

Didn’t think of 2 side by side, I’ll try that as well. Thanks

You can also set the block on the waste board, touch off of it.

Then, you do one of two things:

  1. If the dowels are smaller in diameter than the zero block then you move the Z down (block height - dowel width) and zero there
  2. If the dowels are larger in diameter than the zero block then you move the Z up (dowel height - block width) and zero there

I do this type of thing all the time when I need to stop carving a complex part and then need to recover positions later.

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Brandon Parker

Thank you, I’ll try that too!

NP…I edited what I posted to be a little more clear …

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Brandon Parker

You could always go for something a bit fancier like a spar or girder. After all, have CNC will make overly complicated aerostructures. :grinning:

I made this out of 19mm (~3/4 in) pine for the spar and 4mm plywood for the red landing gear. Its stood up remarkably well considering how much material I removed and the punishment its taken.

That looks great!

Cut a 1/2" square bar, mount it in your lathe(small 4-jaw chuck req’d), and then lathe away the length you want to be round.

Thanks, but no access to a lathe

I would recommend that you purchase or make V blocks to hold your dowels so that you can machine them.

Great minds think alike! Lol That’s exactly what I did. Thanks for your input.