Most tombstone sizing mistakes don’t show up on the receiving dock. They show up the first time the B-axis indexes with a full load and a vise jaw clips the way cover, or when the top row of parts sits above the highest point the spindle can reach, or when the pallet changer faults because …
CNC Tombstone Sizing Guide – Match Your HMC Pallet Read More »
Most shops have fixture drawings somewhere in a binder on the shop floor. The dimensions are there, but the solid geometry is not, which means every time a setup changes, someone is measuring, indicating, or guessing whether the tombstone body is going to clear the spindle head during an aggressive tool path. Loading the actual …
How to Download and Use CAD Files for CNC Fixture Planning Read More »
Most shops know their machine table. Most shops know their fixtures. The piece between them gets less attention, and that is usually where setup time and repeatability problems start. The CNC sub plate is a precision-ground flat plate that mounts directly to the machine table and creates a stable, reusable interface for all the workholding …
Sub Plates Explained – The Connective Layer in CNC Workholding Read More »
You bought a 5-axis machine to cut cycle times, reduce setups, and hold tighter tolerances. Then you bolted a standard Kurt vise onto the trunnion table, the spindle nose buried itself into the jaw on a B-axis move, and suddenly that machine is running like a three-axis knee mill with a six-figure price tag. This …
What is 5-Axis Workholding and When Do You Need It? Read More »
If you’re still running standard vises on your HMC or VMC, you’re likely leaving machine capacity on the table every cycle. The question isn’t whether a modular vise system outperforms a standard vise, it does, and the numbers aren’t close. The real question is: how much productivity are you giving up, and does the switch …
Modular Vise vs Standard Vise – Productivity Comparison Read More »
Setting up a CNC tombstone on a Horizontal Machining Center is one of the highest-leverage operations in a machine shop. Done right, it unlocks everything horizontal machining is designed to deliver, multiple faces loaded, parts cycling automatically, spindle running as long as possible between operator touches. Done wrong, it introduces runout, work coordinate errors, and …
When you’re setting up workholding for an HMC or VMC, two products come up over and over again: tombstones and angle plates. At Tombstone City, we manufacture both, and we get asked which one is right almost every day. The honest answer is: it depends on your machine, your parts, and your production goals. This …
At Tombstone City, we talk to machine shop owners and CNC machinists every day who are leaving spindle time on the table, not because their machines are slow, but because their workholding isn’t working hard enough. If you’re running a Horizontal Machining Center (HMC) and still loading parts one or two at a time, a …
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