Workholding on the Pocket NC is still, well, a work in progress for me, and it is for many people. There aren’t a lot of off the shelf solutions. The machine does come with a mini-vise, which can hold a surprising amount, but it has some limitations. For one, it isn’t referenced to the axis of rotation of the B axis. Another, anything held in it can often be far away from the furthest Z travel available, resulting in the need to use extended reach tooling.
Enter, once again, Ed Kramer @ekramer3 on IG, who came up with a solution consisting of strictly off the shelf parts that results in a 4 jaw chuck being placed about 1.75in off the surface of the B axis plate. This can hold round stock out to 70mm.
In case Instagram forgets itself, the relevant parts are:
- Sherline 4-jaw chuck with ER16 hub (part #1078), or the 3-jaw (part #1042)
- Shars ER16 straight shank collet chuck toolholder (part # 202-1423)
- 3/4″ ER40 collet (mine is from Shars 202-6494)
- Pocket NC ER40 collet fixture https://pocketnc.com/collections/all-products/products/b-table-collet
A few pictures of my setup:
And here is a short video of it cutting:
Finally, if it is of use to anyone, this is my F360 file containing the fixture. Bewarned, it is hard-coded to my V2-50’s B-table offset as calibrated by PocketNC.
A Modicum of Fun 