Working on these simple 2op parts on the 4th axis today to familiarize myself with the setup when working on the more complicated pieces.
My boss has an exciting way of making small intricate parts that require multiple angles using the 4th axis rotary. On the face of it, it would seem perfectly natural to do this, but it gets a little more complicated when to do it all in a single setup. For example, these two small rectangle pieces that I made today were all in one setup and required no cleanup after pulling them off the machine.
To make these pieces, I used 1" round stock, and taking a large endmill; I was able to quickly remove the majority of the material, leaving a small shoulder on the remaining leaving a small rectangle box at its final dimensions. Once you complete all your detail work, the problem arises, and are left with the part hanging on the stock. Cutting it off without any skin or material that has to be removed later is difficult, and many people clean the pieces up by hand. However, there is an alternative.
Cleaning the top surface of the part and the shoulder you recessed, you can then double-stick tape a small metal block on the underside of your piece, attaching it to the stock. Then, taking a small endmill, you can carefully step your way down the material, roughing, then finishing the side face until you part it off. Using this method, I finished the part on the machine and only had to wash it off before bagging it with no cleanup required.
Everything stayed in its place, and after measuring it, I found I was within 0.0005" on it all. From start to finish, the pair of these little rectangle parts took approximately 3h 32m. Programming them took 37m, and setting up the 4th axis and getting everything dialed in took the majority of the time. One of the best parts of this trick using round stock and tape is that you can keep pulling the material out, and you don't have to reset any work offsets.