To help pass the time during Covid lockdown, I got a desktop CNC mill. And while it came with a great set of controls and tools, the included work holding and enclosure lacked something to be desired.

The enclosure kept in dust, but none of the noise. To remedy this, I put together an enclosure made out of two layers of 1/4” MDF glued together with sound-dampening glue. The layer of glue between the MDF absorbed more sound than plain 1/2” MDF would have, and weather stripping and cable glands at all of the openings stopped sound from escaping.

To uplevel the work holding, I drew inspiration from existing modular vise systems, and machined a threaded tooling plate to replace the bed the mill came with. However, existing modular vises would have take up too much of this mill’s limited Z travel, so I designed a custom modular vise that allowed stock to be held as low as 0.1” above the mill’s bed.

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Opened enclosure, propped open with two locking aluminum arms that are fixed inside the enclosure
To help see inside while the machine was running, I attached a table to the side of the enclosure and connected it to a wide-angle webcam inside.
two of the vise sets attached to the table, the dead jaws are at the top of the image, and the moving jaws at the bottom.
Close up of the dead jaw. The two flat head screws are meant to locate the jaw tram to the mill, while the central screw provides the force to hold the jaw in place. The shallow step in the jaw is to allow material to be clamped as close to the bed a
Close up of the moving jaw. The two screws rest on top of wedges that match the angle in the back of the jaw, so that tightening the screws pushes the jaw forward while also providing down force to counteract jaw lift. The range of motion is equal to
Two tapped holes in each jaw allow the installation of small soft jaws. The jaws bolt in from the top, meaning a piece of material only needs two holes in it to become a soft jaw blank.
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