We just got this new work holding solution at our shop and figured it was cool enough to share with you guys here. It's called blue photon and it's a UV curing adhesive. Basically you slather the stuff on, set your part on top and hit it with these UV LEDs for about 60 seconds and it grips the parts without clamps or distortion.

We just got it and I've only used it on a few parts so far but from what I've seen it is a total game-changer. We do lots of thin walled aluminum aerospace parts with difficult to hold geometry. Recently I ran a repeat job of a part that gave me lots of problems before, but this time I was able to place 24 of these grippers along the periphery which eliminated all vibrations and enabled me to increase my RPMs and cutting parameters which shaved several hours off the cycle due to the added rigidity.

Here's the fixture:

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The gripper heads are hardened steel with a sapphire rod through the middle to transmit the light and are threaded in the fixture. Apply the adhesive to the top:

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Set the part on and insert the LED heads from the bottom to cure:

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And now my delicate parts can be machined with full access to the all sides and no distortion from clamps or screws. When machining is done, 1/4 turn with a wrench breaks the bond and the residue can be cleaned off with steam or hot water followed by some acetone.

Super handy! Last week I used it to to machine some A2 steel with some .078" thick floors that had to be held to +.0002"/-0 (yes two tenths) which saved me from having to do a final surface grinding setup.

That is cool.  

I have seen guys use super glue to hold small parts, but I have yet to try it.

Yep, that is a good solution for some things. The neat thing about this system is that it will actually fill gaps (they claim up to .125") so you can use it to hold odd-shaped or warped parts that super glue couldn't.

UV cured adhesive is the tits!

I saved several thousand dollars on material cost for a titanium project by using UV cured adhesive. Before UV I had to buy plate large enough to leave tabs that later had to be removed and blended to the profile, the adhesive eliminated the need for the extra material. Six inch thick titanium plate is crazy expensive so it doesn't take much to add up to real money.

That's pretty slick!