Quote Originally Posted by mocha View Post
I can see myself trying this sort of job... Would tabs solve the problem Jazz??
Yes they work for some jobs but not all and with really thin material or small parts then there's not much left for the tab and they break or let the part lift.

On small parts I often leave a thin skin 0.1-0.2mm and don't actually cut right thru so it's kind of like a one big tab then just clean up with de-burr tool or quick blast across the sander and the skins gone, tabs on small parts don't really work very well.!

Quote Originally Posted by Chris J View Post
I wonder if some kind of picture frame might work.
Slide the sheet in, make the cuts.
Chris the problem comes from when you do the profile or outside cut thru the material, if not held down it will get grabbed or flung by the cutting tool. No sicker feeling than seeing a beautiful part which took 2 hours machine time come to life only to get chewed up and spit out in 2secs.!!

Clamping is probably one of the most un-thought about and time consuming things in DIY CNC.!! Unfortunatly the smaller the parts or thinner the material the worse the issue the more the need to get a good system in place.
If you have any thoughts to make multple identical parts then it's often worth taking the time to make a dedicated Jigs.!