Original Posted By: "Hubbard, Eugene"
Regarding nesting parts for a CNC cutting operation and the bendingdirection, it's somewhat impossible to know which way the grain will beunless you yourself are running the CNC. Imagine that you have a 5' by 5'sheet which could be placed on the CNC table however. But regardless of howyou plan to have the operator orient the grain, there are several reasonsthat it won't happen (i.e. it's Friday afternoon, or all the shop has is apiece of scrap that your parts fit on in only one way but it's got the wronggrain orientation). My suggestion is to then lay out parts at 45 degrees.Grain in sheet metal runs in the direction that it was rolled and it's safeto assume that it runs in either the x-axis or the y-axis of that squaresheet. It's also fairly safe to assume that the operator is going to laythe sheet on the table orthogonal to the table. So if your part is cut sothat all bends are 45 degrees to orthogonal, you split the differencebetween a correct grain orientation and an incorrect one. It's not optimum,but this is the real world.Robert HainesDu Quoin, Illinois________________________________________________________________________________