Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
I can’t find any disadvantages or defects… and for that I’d like to thank the whole team—from idea givers, to engineers, to machinists—thank you!!! These cutters made by Veritas can be used two ways. Using them like a hand-held pencil sharpener, you can put accurate tenons on the tips of turnings or on rustic furniture components. The cutters can also be used with a power feed to make accurate dowelling. Modern shops see a lot of what’s called High Mix Low Volume work. That means they make a lot of different parts, but very few of each specific part. Because of that, setup time is a bigger percentage of shop time than it used to be. Using a Fixture Plate reduces that time and so is very important for High Mix Low Volume Work. Now the real fun begins. We have to drill about a zillion holes. We will do alternating threaded and smooth bores, all the holes get reamed in at least one if not two sizes, they all get chamfered, and they all get spot drilled. Plus, we need to position these holes as accurately as possible. Simpler maintenance: Full access to subgrade enables re-levelling in the event of rutting from vehicles
With an accurate Fixture Plate, you can machine big parts in sections, moving the part to allow access to each section. That’s very hard to impossible to do with T-Slots. Now that you’ve got a Fixture Plate on your mill, let’s do something useful with it. Consider setting up a vise on the Fixture Plate. We’ll use our normal clamps to mount the vise, except that they’re screwed into the fixture plate instead of T-Slot Nuts. I’m not going to bother showing that because it’s nothing new. to cut precise tenons on parts such as chair spindles as shown in Photo B. It was immediately apparent that it would If we make one hole perform both functions, we reduce the tolerance and repeatability with which we can perform the Location function. Imagine dropping a dowel pin down two bores. One is half or even 1/3 as long as the other. Remember, we’re talking 1/2″ diameters in bores that are 3/4 to maybe 0.8″ deep. There’s a chamfer at the top and bottom so we have even less length available. Which bore is going to hold the pin more accurately vertical and in position?
Site Customisation
If you want to make exact-sized dowels from any wood you choose, a Lie-Nielsen Dowel Plate is the best tool.
Suddenly our Fixture Plate is a lot less convenient to use. The alternative is we loosen up tolerances and make bigger holes in the sub-plate. Of course that means it will be positioned less accurately. Start with a round piece of wood (or something whittled or shaved close to round) ; chamfer the leading end and off you go. There are mounting holes for a No.10 screw.
Recommendations
The Tosa Tool Fixture Plates are well made and have some premium features found on much more expensive plates and not available from the other inexpensive vendors. Here are my favorites:
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