Business Card Holder
overview
This project involved manufacturing a business card holder from 6061-T6 aluminum during an international CNC machining program at Tecnun Universidad de Navarra in San Sebastián, Spain, sponsored by the Gene Haas Foundation. Starting from an engineering drawing, I manually programmed half of the part in G-code for a Haas VF-2 CNC mill, and completed the rest of the part using Mastercam. In order to machine the part, I completed machine setup by locating the workpiece with an edge finder and establishing work offsets. After completion, I performed a first-article inspection to verify the finished part met the specified engineering tolerances.
details
I was invited to attend a three-week CNC machining program at Tecnun, Universidad de Navarra in San Sebastián, Spain, through a scholarship sponsored by the Gene Haas Foundation. The course was taught by Cal Poly instructors Trian and Dan, where we learned the complete workflow of manufacturing a machined part using industry-standard CNC equipment and inspection techniques.
Our final project was to manufacture an aluminum business card holder from a completed engineering drawing provided by Trian. Throughout the project, we learned how to properly set up the Haas VF-2 CNC mill by aligning the vise, locating the workpiece with an edge finder, establishing work offsets, and machining custom soft jaws to securely fixture the stock.
The first operation was completed entirely through manually written G-code. This involved facing the material, machining the part's outer contour, and creating the card pocket using canned cycles. After completing the first side, the part was flipped over, and Mastercam was used to generate the remaining toolpaths needed to finish the opposite side (front).
Dan taught us how to operate a Haas TL-1 toolroom lathe to manufacture a custom turned workpiece. We first designed the part in SolidWorks, imported the model into Mastercam to generate lathe toolpaths, and then set up and machined it on the lathe.
After both components were completed, the threaded holes were manually tapped so the stand could be screwed into the card holder. Finally, I inspected the finished part against the engineering drawing to verify it met the required tolerances.