AMAZING Cheap CNC Fixture: Superglue! WW185 

We had a bunch of 0.06 aluminum parts to cut earlier this week so we gave this method a try. A flat aluminum plate was the 'fixture' to which we secured the parts. We used a 1/8" endmill with three flutes to profile the parts and began by running at 30 ipm. The first few parts ran great, then we had three that went into orbit when the tape separated from the fixture. Thinking that the acetone in the super glue activator was killing the adhesive in the tape, we stopped using the activator. After another orbiting part, I thought that maybe the coolant was loosening the tape. Running without coolant resulted in a broken endmill. We were just about ready to give up, but then just tried slowing the feed to 20 ipm. After that, the job ran like a champ! So the final combination was 3M Original blue painter's tape, Fastcap 2P-10 glue with no activator, and a 2-flute endmill running at 20 ipm with coolant. The tape was burnished to both the part and fixture.

Just got around to trying this. Worked absolutely beautiful. It was for a control panel 6"x10"x.125", so a large surface area, but got the job done! Thanks John, for all the information, tips and tricks, that you have shared over the years! I for one, have learned a great deal from your channel

Interesting timing. Last week I bought six rolls of blue tape and three packs of SuperGlue in disposable single use tubes for impromptu work holding on three different CNC machines.

Many people in the wood CNC area use this trick. A nice addition is to soak on side in activator, and one side with the glue. Instant adhesion, no need for the clamp!

Loctite super glue cures so fast that it can instantly (yes, one brief touch) glue the user to large immovable objects like a building, truck or mill. I highly recommend either keeping your cellphone nearby so you can call for help or keeping acetone handy or using latex gloves when using this glue. How do I know this? Well, this guy I know ...

I use this method to keep parallels in place on long running jobs, works great and holds up to coolant and blowing down the vice between parts for quite a while.

This is the stuff I love. Thx John! I'm cancelling the workholding class now, this is all I needed. Just kidding...

Four years later still love this trick. Glad to know it. it's a must know for thin plate work

NYC CNC have you tried upgrading to green 3m auto masking tape. Can be bought in 3 in wide and usually costs businesses less than 20$ a roll. Water resistant and a stronger hold and of course residue free. I feel like it could improve your already great solution.

Last time I tried this with flood coolant the tape started to soften and some of my contours became oblong. So your tip of doing the precision stuff first is very important.

I often use 5 min epoxy, no tape. It releases with heat but it is coolant proof so you can use flood with it. Small amounts hold very well.

I use this fixturing tecnique since more than 2 years on my router. It is widely used by guitars manufacturers to keep wood in place while scraping it. I use adesive paper tape, it works the same. I don't use any clamp, a big pressure with all your body for few seconds is enough. Also a wood roller to flat the tape is the best choice. For best results I spray a super glue activator on one face. While the solvent in the activator evaporates, I get enough time to distribute the glue on the other face. Then I join them by applying all the weight of my body that I can. I mentally count until ten and I'm ready to go. P.S. Prepare the fixture on a table, not on the vise of the milling machine!

Baking Soda also catalyzes CA glue quite fast and sets up the glue with an even stronger bond. Thanks for the great videos! Thanks for being awesome.

Awesome video! I have been using this trick for about a year now. I take it a little further by loading a steel dowel as a tool and adjusting the Z-axis depth to the top of my stock minus 9 mils. 9 mils is the thickness of 3 tape layers . I stick a small piece of tape on top of my stock below the dowel. I apply the super glue to one of the tape surfaces and I spray a light coat of accelerator to the other. Then I quickly place my stock and lower the Z-axis (goto zero on Mach3) to act as the clamp. It speeds things up because I don't have to wait minutes for the glue to set up. The accelerator cures it in about 5 seconds and still allows enough time for the glue to spread evenly and evacuate the air.

John, shock also break superglue. I use this regularly, after milling the part, I remove the fixture, and slam it onto my anvil with the part facing down. The shock separates the two pieces.

Used this trick today using the powder coat type tape on some 1 off starboard parts that would have otherwise been a pain in the cuninglinguals. This made them super easy. I was a bit worried if the tape would hold to the plastic well enough.it was surprisingly hard to knock loose .. now no worries. Thanks a million

Last time I suggested tape to my machinist friend, he laughed me out of the building. Next time I will show him this, truly impressive.

Nice concept! I will have to try this with my CNC router for cutting some parts out of CF sheet in a water bath. Cutting at home with kids in the house, so I don't want any risk of that dust getting air-born.

Works great! I have been using this method of work holding since I saw this video. Thanks for sharing!

I do the same thing with Wax. McMaster-Carr Item Number: 1129K11. The wax is excellent because it has resins that make it extremely sticky. It can also be melted off and reused. As long as I run Coolant or Air, the Wax does not re-melt. I often make thin panels with detailed Hole Patterns and extensive Milling in sizes greater than 30 inches x 20 inches. When Milling thin Panels I also like to use Downcut Endmills. Harvey Tool makes a nice Three Flute Downcut Mill in various sizes. A sample of their Downcut Mill is: 873824. I've also found that because this Wax is so strong, I use it in place of Loc-Tite when installing Slip Fit Dowel Pins. The Dowel Pins can not come out naturally, but if you need to take them out, only a small amount of Heat drops them out.

This fixturing is amazing! In the beginning i was not so sure. We was using this method to machine aluminium plate with stock around 250x60x15mm on our GenosM560. We also used coolant thru spindel and still it was holding job really stedy! Thanks for awsome idea!

Your spindle is out of tram, you can see that when the flycutter changes feed direction.

I agree with Klaufmann, I ran a Bridgeport for about two decades, and I would either a facemill or a flycutter to see if the head was in perfect tram, any less than perfect would immediatly show

Good stuff John, enjoyed! ATB, Robin

You are simply the best cnc RU-vid Chanel!

John I just cut/engraved a Titanium key fob by using the gel super glue and sticking the stock to a piece of faced scrap aluminum with a few razor scrapes to help with curing. Held up great and the heat gun made short work of it when it came time to reclaim it from the aluminum carrier. I wasn't being easy on that Titanium, either.

22mm 3r electrode holders were designed to be held this way many years ago. Can also use good quality double stick tape.

Just tried it today with some lucite too small for vacuum table. Worked perfectly.

Great vid, I was just in the middle of setting up a superglue chuck but was going to do part to plate (plate has shallow concentric grooves). I'll try the tape in between after seeing this. Especially after the crazy milling demo. Never would have thought it could be that strong!

Thank you for sharing! I just used it a few minutes ago and the part held firm. Couldn't find the adhesive you used in the big box store so I grabbed whatever they had (still Loctite brand) and it worked fine.

WOW! That second part blew my mind.

For the channel you mill, to pry the part off with. You should make it a ramp over the whole plate. Then make a jam(of the same angle as the ramp) that you can tap in, to keep the pop out pressure even over the length of the part.

I've used this trick for years on my wood cnc router, would never have imagine it would be successful on a mill! Prep is key as you say!

Drill walked on you. Curious why no spot drill? I'm a woodworker... love your videos!

Thanks for sharing this..this would probly save setup time on some little home projects...I even got a chuckle out of seeing it work for the big part. Thanks again.

Ryan is right We use it in Lincoln Tech in Mahwah NJ . Greetings to the rubber band pistol class

Awesome! Thanks for doing the leg work and sharing the results. Ill try it out.

When it comes to vices I love the two piece vise "this old Tony" build in one of his videos I build it after him and with that I can use the whole table for setting up the work and you can build the vice as high as you want so nothing is in the way. Since I switched to cnc the two piece vice is my favorite it's cheap, easy to make and you can clamp the biggest parts with a vice some use a setup plate under it but that i would recommend only if you take very very hard cuts for normal work I never use it. The glue technique is completely new to me but after watching this vid I will sure give it a try. I also like the magnet chuck for light cutting and because I work mostly with steel its a possibility...

9:46 "Rambo" :D

Hey John, can you give some more informations on the "vise" you have used there? Could be a great option for diy cnc mills as it does not waste z travel. Cheers Alex

works well with green painters tape if you need to hold something while you paint it too.

On Plexiglas and Lexan I used 3M .003 double sided tape with great success . Keep oil free and use sharp tools .

Critical detail when splicing more than one width of tape: Only use butt (i.e. side-by-side) splices. A gap at the butt splice is fine. Lap (i.e. overlapping) splicing the tape would result in a raised, uneven surface. 8:23 In this shot, it's hard to see if there is any gap, meaning there is an unnecessary risk of overlap.

Well, at least no shortage of superlatives in this video 🤣 🤣

Bloody awesome, just used it thanks John and the team for the vids cheers from OZ.

you just need to use a good restickable/removable double-sided foam tape. Saves you hassle, time, and money. I'll see if I could find an address to send you samples

Thank you for your sharing,Low cost solution

I'm shocked that that works so well. Thanks for the tip!

Speaking of the nyccnc webpage I was playing over there and the clear filters doesn't work in the library. You have to deselect them instead. At least that is how it is for me, don't know about others. I don't think I am ready to take the jump to tape holding the pieces I work on just yet. lol

I have been using this method for Wood and Acrylic my CNC table. But use super glue activator on the top piece of tape to get the Super glue to set faster. Would not have thought of using this method on a mill with aluminum though.

John, will you do a test? Use the tape trick and then immediately place a tenths indicator onto the top of the plate that you think might be high. Lets see if it expands or contracts as the superglue sets up. This would be useful information when dealing with flatness and parallelism together.. ... NO CLAMPS!

Is there a large advantage to using glue on tape vs 2 sided tape? Ive used 2 sided tape on a few parts with pretty good success. Making long thin parts. I was shocked at how consistent the thickness was.

I use 2P-10 for this as it's very tolerant of the kicker being sprayed right onto the glue and slammed together- if you have thin parts like the nameplate pictured and you don't want to bend it on removal, you can use aliphatic resin or white glue (Elmer's School glue or Titebond 1, but not Titebond 2 or 3 as they are PVA glues) then soak the part in water overnight and the glue will dissolve so the part literally slides off. This is really useful especially for parts of thin copper or brass sheet as you won't end up distorting the part, and you can machine parts instead of being forced to fabricate them by chemical etching. I don't believe scuffing the part before you apply the tape does anything for you, but degreasing is critical.

just a heads up WD-40 with a mdf base you might end up sending the part across the shop. My small CNC router ended up launching it across the shop.

RFI, in electronics stands for Radio Frequency Interference.

I used it for pcb milling, works perfect. :), Thanks.

This is awesome! Thank you so much! Also water works as a good activator as well!

Hi guys....I recently super glued a cast iron gib to cut its profile.....the only way I could remove the part was to soak it in boiling water for 15 minutes...then a good hit with a mallet.. I tried heating with gas...didn't budge..!

Hot glue depending on the use case holds pretty well.

tape is used on 3d printer's alot and lathe guy's do the super glue all the time cool they both made the big time on the mill :)

Awesome,I try with ab glue, it's nice to put them on but difficult to take them out . When my part need long time cycle, I will not use glue , cuz coolant gonna remove it.

i have never had the superglue come loose while cutting aluminum with this technique. i use 3m blue painters tape with any kind of cheap superglue i can find. i dont wipe the tapes with alcohol, i don't use any catalyst, but i wait at least one minute and check the adhesion before starting miling. BUT, the tape comes loose of aluminum sometimes especially when i cut deeper and part gets too hot(around 80 degrees celcius)

I like the use off the blue tape I also like the loc-line you're using for the Fog Buster were do you get it look on loc-line site but can't find it . Keep them coming.

If you are cutting wood/alluminium thicker than 1/4" that is not too large a sheet.... Just build a small corner pocket at the far top of your X axis / Y axis corner and wedge your project board into it... then clamp an opposite corner in the far right X axis / Y axis to the bed... not to the project board..basically this wedges the material between two opposing diagonal corners without clamping to the TOP of the material surface but to the SIDE of it. Works great is reliable and means you only need ONE clamp ever, and allows not having to worry about spindle-clamp collision....(thus giving full availability to the workspace)............. THIS is by far the fastest simplest reliable solution ever.... Works great on wood thicker than 1/4", at up to 1mtr sqr....but I have not never tried this method on thinner wood ..and think it might work depending on the size of the material.

I've seen a RU-vid video on this where the person sprayed the accelerator on one tape and the glue on the opposing part tape side. Seems wait time effective

This tip is awesome 👍👍👍

CHEERS From Australia.

So, how does this compare to using double-sided fixturing tape (and no superglue)? You can't burnish the tape on as well, I don't think.

Wonder twins activate! Form, 4 dowel pin holes! Form, two dowel pins! LOL, Also, if you want a very flat part then skip the clamp. I learned a cool trick today, thank you for the tape + superglue trick.

Freaking awesome John! Another great video.

my intention is not to highlight the error if there was one but, in the 0.59s conversion from inches to mm 0,012 are 0.3 mm per tooth, right?

Hmmmm, I love this but what about the tiny particles of superglue dissolving and clogging up hose lines over time? i don't know, is this a logical concern?

i think this method can hold down every single part i machine in my desktop cnc route\ thanks

Nice solution, although I thought it was going to be for some RenShape !!! lol :) Love the slowmo chip cam action too. Thanks.

Amazing! Cool technique.

I'm more amazed at the tape than the superglue.

Have you used in cutting 4130 or similar?

Hi! Did i hear that correct - need to wait 30 minutes?

I try with some tape very bad result... the masking tape doesn't stick to sacrifice plate

I´m looking for a low profile vise like that, is that a commercial part or did you build it?, thanks for the info

I'm interested in the loc-line you're using for the Fog Buster...very sleek.

Superglue needs the moisture of the air for curing. I accept uncured glue between the pieces. Any problems with that?

baking soda helps harden super glue. It is an old trick my grandpa used to use with model airplanes

That is freaking amazing!

Do you need a quicker set time? throw a little baking soda on that glue, like an instant 2 part epoxy with no heat from the catalyst. The cons: that part has just been fused together lol

I am having serious problems with the tape adhering to the part and fixture. I'm only cutting 1/8" sheet stock with a 1/8" and a 1/4" endmill and it seems like the tape loses all of it's adhesive strength as soon as the flood or mist coolant hits it. I'm cleaning the part and fixture with alcohol and doing everything else as above. Any ideas what's going wrong? Thanks in advance.

I have a question about broaching with a CNC machine.

Damn i can not believe the large part held.....craaaaaaazy...thats a lot of load force and didnt move

is double sided tape not way easier?

Nice tip! You could use an accelerator to cure the glue nearly instantly.

Thanks for this great tip!

By the way one question... why fly cutters? They're great for manual mills but I never seen CNC guys use them. They're almost exclusively using face mills. Also your CNC needs tramming.

Awesome stuff!!

John, nice video, but did you test this method with wet coolant type works? Does the heat transfer trough aluminium does not make connection loose or couse it to vibrate?

Does this only work in aluminium when you are barely taking a cut?

Say, that sort of thick rigid "scuffing pad" that John uses in this video, does anyone know where to get those? I'm not familiar with them, I've just got a lot of scotchgard pads on hand which I know will also work fine, but I'd like to know where to get those things. thanks--

What kind of painters type is that ? 3M, automotive ?

I use mounting tape double sided and it works remarkably well and is a cheaper option..try it

maybe a dump question but why is tape being used instead of gluing it strait to the plate ?

I can't seem to find that glue in Australia, are there any alternatives?