CNC Pliers
Here's a pair of pliers made from 1/4" thick aluminum plate. Designed as a CNC project, you could also (patiently) make them on a manual machine. The two pieces are identical and are held together with a short (~.3") piece of 1/4" brass rod that is peened over. The interlocking area is .125" deep.
Before building a successful model, we built several prototypes, including a "wood trace" model (seen in the left side of the photo below).
The print below shows the general layout of the pliers.
General dimensions are seen in the print below.
The toolpath can be seen in the print below. Note that our "origin" (0,0,0) for the program started at the "nose" of the plier. We used a 1/4" diameter center-cutting two-flute end mill. This allowed us to drill the hinge hole with out a tool change. The actual CNC program cuts the outline and the interlock area to a depth of .125" (actually, "Z-.125"). Then the hinge hole is drilled through (to "Z-.3"). Finally, the outer profile is cut a little more than 1/4" (actually "Z-.27") and the piece falls out of the plate (we used 3" X 1/4" plate).
The actual CNC code is seen below. We used our "PowerStation" CNC post-processing software to generate this code from an AutoCAD "dxf" file. Note that the feed rate here is shown as "5" (inches per minute). You might go a bit slower on the first prove-out.
_______________________________________________________
%
O1000
N10
G20 G40
N20
S2000 M3
N30
G0 X0 Y0 Z1.
N40
G0 Z1.
N50
X.1804 Y-.2053
N60
G01 Z-.125 F5.
N70
X1.3718
N80
X2.553 Y.3399
N90
X4.8765 Y.4111
N100
Y.411
N110
G3 X5.1265 Y.6688 R.2579
N120
G1 Y.9389
N130
G3 X4.8686 Y1.1968 R.2579
N140
G1 X2.6692
N150
X1.5838 Y1.0181
N160
X1.02
N170
X.6505 Y.6486
N180
Y.4114
N190
G2 X.5755 Y.4324 R-.044
N200
G1 X-.2283 Y.5027
N210
X.1804 Y-.2053
N220
X.8713
N230
Y.1162
N240
X.8039 Y.1836
N250
X.9005 Y.5451
N260
X1.1235 Y.7681
N270
X1.5666
N280
X2.2254 Y.464
N290
X1.3169 Y.0447
N300
X.8713
N310
X.6831 Y.3034
N320
X.755 Y.5158
N330
X1.0734 Y.8091
N340
X1.4433 Y.8294
N350
X2.37 Y.354
N360
X1.433 Y-.0405
N370
X.981 Y-.0709
N380
X.9707 Y.3641
N390
X1.32 Y.6271
N400
X2.0494 Y.3843
N410
X1.433 Y.182
N420
X1.0734 Y.1517
N430
X1.2994 Y.4045
N440
X1.7925 Y.354
N450
X1.4946 Y.3135
N460
X1.2584 Y.3438
N470
X1.25 Y.343
N480
Z-.3
N490
Z.25
N500
X.1804 Y-.2053
N510
G1 Z-.27 F5.
N520
X1.3718
N530
X2.553 Y.3399
N540
X4.8765 Y.4111
N550
Y.411
N560
G3 X5.1265 Y.6688 R.2579
N570
G1 Y.9389
N580
G3 X4.8686 Y1.1968 R.2579
N590
G1 X2.6692
N600
X1.5838 Y1.0181
N610
X1.02
N620
X.6505 Y.6486
N630
Y.4114
N640
G2 X.5755 Y.4324 R-.044
N650
G1 X-.2283 Y.5027
N660
X.1804 Y-.2053
N670
G0 Z1.
N680
X0. Y0.
N690
G0 X0Y0Z1.0
N700
M5
N710
M30
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