Thread: Router Pantograph build - work in progress

Originally Posted by doug3030

Looking forward to seeing how yours goes Paul. My "dilemmas" were minor irritations more than anything serious.

Just before Christmas I acquired a metal lathe and milling machine and plan to revisit the router pantograph project for the third time now that I have the equipment to make my own metal components like bushings to minimise wear and increase accuracy. THis might be a good Winter project.

If I was not so fussy I could probably get a lot more done.

Cheers

Doug

Doug
Any chance of bringing your pantograph router to Daves GTG

I would love to have a look

Cheers Matt

What he said

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Doug Any chance of bringing your pantograph router to Daves GTG

I will see what I can do to gather up the bits. It worked alright but I know I can do better.

I promised Dave an Incra demo, which I was going to get set up and the prep done over a 2 week period in December but unfortunately I had to go to Queensland during that fortnight as my Mum is not doing well. She was not expected to make it through the week but she did but is not recognizing people or her surroundings now. Incra demo is therefore officially off but I will see if I can get the pantograph back together. Hopefully I have not recycled/repurposed too many bits.

Btw heve not seen much fro the host confirming the weekend is still a goer.

Cheers
Doug

It's still a goer

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

I took a couple of pics this morning, as I was setting it all up. I think you need to work out your base size and things like that yourself. Like the height of the router/laminator in the jig etc. I did an experiment by putting two small lengths of timber square to my bench, and parallel to each other. For the piece for the follower to follow, I trenched a groove in it with my table saw. The other piece I sat the router above it. Then turned it on. The router followed the following line perfect. So I was pretty happy with that. As you can see I used all 19mm radiata pine for this project. Luckily I purchased a fair bit from Masters before they closed down. A grade timber usually double the price of normal RP, and with 70% discount. Wish I bought more. I have a piece left over from a desk and cupboard that I made for my wife, it was about 1600mm long by 240mm wide. This morning I cut it in half and glued it together, to give me a base of 800mm x 480, I am thinking this should suffice pretty good. I'll tidy that up tomorrow and screw the pantograph onto it. I'll do a couple more pics then.

Hopefully these pics give you a bit of an idea of my attempt. This morning I also made one modification, where the router sits in, I've added another section to increase the height, as the little lugs on the side of the router pop up too high, next photo you'll see what I mean, its being glued on now. (Just to secure the router better). After I am happy with all this, I'll then do the addition for the dremel.

I've also recently made Matthius' other jig, the advanced finger joint jig, with all the gears etc. Turned out very nice, I am still working out methods to satisfactorily clamp small pieces of timber in it, whilst the sawblade cuts through. Making a small box with 2.5mm fingers joints looks very neat.

Paul

Hi Doug and all, I've pretty much got most of this pantograph done now. Yesterday I even made the extra bit for the Dremel. Got my Dremel fitting in there very snug. Only thing is, being a lot smaller it is rather high from the work area, so I might have to work out a way to elevate the workpiece. You'll notice how I put that extra bit on the main router one, to fit the little lugs on the side of my makita router in nice and tight. I've made 4 adjustable timber clamps, two are visible in the pics, the other two are for the following end, one adjustable one fixed.

I'll see how much use this gets, I may have to make a dedicated table for it, but lack of room in my shed might prevent this.

Originally Posted by Pauls321

I'll see how much use this gets, I may have to make a dedicated table for it, but lack of room in my shed might prevent this.

Yes, they take up a surprisingly large amount of space. When I finally redo mine, I am planning to have it mounted to a sheet of ply which can be hung on a wall out of the way when not actually in use.

Cheers

Doug