Cutting Small Pieces

The mill vise only holds workpiece up to about 3.8" wide.  In the past, i have cut pieces from 6"x6" CFC sheets by clamping them to the mill table (after removing the mill vise).  This is very slow.  It should be very precise but today's piece was not.  The clamps apparently did not hold it down adequately. Worse, it is very slow, cutting at 1 inch per minute at ,005" depth per pass. 

The right solution is to your sheet of CFC or aluminum on a powerful but less precise tool. Once you have a piece that clamps in the mill vise you cut precisely.  

The chop saw is fine for cutting big pieces but nothing small enough to hold with your hands around that spinning blade.  Saws that are not so scary are the table saw and band saw.  Because my previous house had such a tiny garage, I sold them when I moved there.

So, perhaps buy something like the Micro Mark mini-band saw?  I may have a better solution.   The chop saw has a clamping system for holding pieces of wood in place while cutting. This works fine for pieces that are st least 10 inches from the blade.  This 6"x6" sheet was never going to be champagne with that system.  I used a C-clamp to hold the sheet to the table of the saw and no problem!

Is there a way to hold smaller pieces? I may make a replacement for the native clamp with a longer arm to let me clamp sheets to the saw table.   This is an astonishingly simple enhancement.   I should be able cut pieces that are way too small for me to put fingers on near that blade.