I recently bought some mechanical T-Slot hold-downs and I’m evaluating their use on the small Laguna IQ CNC T-track. They provide side pressure to firmly hold my material against the bench dogs. Below are pictures using them to hold down a cutting board by @Katrat. They can be used to clamp the side (90 degree mount) or the corners (45 degree mount). However, their reach sometimes means that I need to add an intervening spacing block to span to my material.
Note that our left & right outside T-tracks do not support these hold-downs well, because there is no spoil board to the outside of those tracks to support the clamping action. Also these hold-downs come with 1" T-Slot 5/16" bolts which are not long enough for our spoil board thickness so I needed to buy some longer 1 1/2" T-Slot bolts.
I find that they make repetitive tasks easier. That is, when I’m doing multiple or two-sided pieces I can quickly go from cutting one piece to another piece or to the other side by releasing the hold-downs, unmounting the piece, brushing chips out of the way, mounting the next piece to cut, re-locking the hold-downs, and running the GCODE program.
Because they only provide side pressure there have been times when I needed to add a vertical clamp to hold my material.
View from the back
View from the front
