While visiting my hometown in California, I caught up with some mentors from my high school FRC team, and they mentioned wanting a tool to quickly cut aluminum box tubing on their CNC router. The team had purchased an Avid Benchtop Pro 24x24” CNC Router for manufacturing parts from materials like aluminum, plastic, and wood. They had seen a product from West Coast Products that they thought might work but found it unsuitable for their router’s size and specific needs. I offered to design a custom version of the product for the team, thinking it would be a quick, straightforward project—however, I soon realized I had underestimated the task.

I began by adjusting the basic design to fit the router’s table and consulted the mentors and students to optimize the jig’s functionality. They only planned to cut 1”, 1.5”, and 2” wide box tubing, so I reduced the number of holes needed for hold-down substitution, which significantly decreased the amount of material required. Just as I was about to start machining, I realized the CNC router might not be square to itself, which would affect the jig’s accuracy. After squaring the machine to within a few thousandths of an inch over a 16” by 16” area, I deemed it good enough and proceeded.

Next, I designed a fixture system in CAD to ensure precise placement and movement of the jig during cuts. Without this additional precision, the part would have been too far out of square to be reliable. With the preparations complete, I generated the G-code for the cut, only to find that it would take over five hours to finish. Given the safety concerns, someone had to monitor the machine throughout the entire process, so I settled in for a long session, occupying my time by watching a movie while listening for any changes in the machine’s sound that might indicate a problem.

About halfway through the cut, I was able to optimize the process, reducing the total cut time to four hours. By the end, I had removed nearly 30 cubic inches of aluminum, generating large chips that frequently got stuck in my fingers. After four days of work—four times longer than my original estimate—I completed the jig and presented it to the team. Despite the unexpected challenges, the custom tool proved successful and met the team’s needs perfectly.