5 Axis Hole Drilling in Plywood - 1260 holes in 64 boards - help very much needed!

[WandrinAndy]

Great pics Phil... Being a newbie to this CNC thing myself I would think a 5-axis machine would be ideal for this... but the crowd on here are extra helpful and innovative. Hope you have some luck with this.

[Jonathan]

I think you will have difficultly getting this done with a 5-axis machine since I don't think anyone on the forum besides myself have ever had 5-axis on their machine.

However perhaps the design could be adjusted to be able to be cut with just 3-axis? The 50mm part could be 'sliced' into (for instance) about eight sheets of 6mm plywood and the holes which would be elliptical cut with 3-axis. Put reference holes in the corners for pins/dowels/something to align them then glue them all together. Clearly this would result in a stepped finish, but if that's sufficent it would be a cheap method. You might even get away with two sheets of 6mm plywood with a void in between which would save a lot of cutting.

[pjm699]

Many thanks for that, I will return to the drawing board for the moment in that case and see what we can do, I think it would have to be the full stack as there is a fair amount of down force on this assembly,

Thank you very much - it's easy when someone else knows how! (slightly ashamed that-that solution evaded me)

That will also give me many more options for where to get it all done as well, that does make it 10 080 holes and 512 boards (wow), that is going to take a lot of sorting! Phil