Hey, all,
Our team is getting ready to make our bumpers and one mentor who works a lot with wood asked if it was legal to build the corner joints on bumpers as a box Joint to increase the strength of the bumpers.
I honestly had never thought of that, and am unsure if it is legal, but I could not come up with a rule that would prevent that as an option. Would this be a possibility?
Yup. That’s legal.
Legal, and beautiful.
I’ve been doing it on our CNC router since we bought it.
Should be fine, only thing that might jam it is R08B and if 3/4" plywood extends 1" or more I’ll be surprised.
You can buy them COTS if you want:
Awesome! How do you do the joints on the CNC, is it like a dogbone design in the joint, or simply rounded edges to something like what was shown above? Would love to try something like that this year (I’ve taken a keen liking to woodworking)
Our team also cut these out on our CNC router (Shapeoko 3XL) this year and had to use a dogbone design like you said. They fit pretty well, although it took a while to design them to come out right because we had never done them on the CNC before. We’re running split bumpers this year so we have 2 separate pieces, a 12in piece and a 24in piece. Sadly I don’t have any pictures of them, but our CAD is public if you’re interested.
Awesome! Thanks all.
This certainly seems like a good year to use bumpers as a structural member of the robot as well.
We also cnc router our bumpers and use dog bones. Quick, easy, and precise that way but these handmade bumpers are beautiful.
You’ll need dogbones or something like that, depending on the size of bit and width of tabs you’re using, a normal dog bone could cut out too much width and create a weak point. I like to keep all my router bit clearance pockets inline with the fingers so they don’t thin the fingers. I also add a horizontal L brace which helps keep everything square during gluing.
What’s the other side of that L brace look like?
Really like this setup. Awesome combination of strength and manufacturability.
Totally legal and they work even better if you’re joining solid wood rather than plywood (our team uses poplar.) Either way, you get a much stronger glue joint from the increased surface area. Highly encouraged, especially if you have a CNC router to cut the joints or a woodworking mentor who has an old-fashioned router jig for making these.
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