Sputnik Seat Stay Mitering Fixtures

**false_aesthetic** · 3 Days Ago

Heyo,

Is anyone using a Sputnik seat stay fixture on a bench mill (e.g. RF-30)?

I'm trying to figure out the best way to set mine up. The challenge is that even with 2" blocks underneath the tilt table I hit the handle for the Y-axis at about 50 degrees and and I'm quickly running out of space between the tubes and hole saw.

I asked Jeff if there are issues with running the fixture with dropouts up and he suggested that it's not optimal:

The issue with having the dropouts up is that you are trying to push the stays out of the jig and the large chip is being pushed into the stay. Also because I use a gantry over the blocks to push both of them down without any twisting force the gantry gets in the way of choking up as much as possible on the stay to keep everything as rigid as possible. Even without the gantry in the way cutting stays that direction is not as good as cutting them with the drops down, much more rigid and much less crashing or slipping.

I figure for it's worth trying this set-up to see how things go, but in case it doesn't work, I'd love to get some alternate solutions.

Thanks

**Jamie Medeiros** · 4 Hours Ago

I have mine on a horizontal mill and on a rotary table so I may not be much help. Looking at the RF-30 mill online maybe rotate the jig 90 degrees and hang it over the side without the X handle center the y on frame center and adjust using the X? Or if it has two x handles remove one?

**false_aesthetic** · 2 Hours Ago

Hey Jamie,

That's a good thought. I have some additional mounting hardware coming so that might be the ticket.

I saw a video of Firefly recently (Australia guy was visiting the shop) and saw the fixture on the horizontal mill. Am I correct in thinking that if you rotated your set-up 90-deg (to look like a vertical mill) you'd be milling with the drop outs above the cutter? If so, that might be a good indication that I could do the same.

Thanks!