Hi. This is my 3-D router pantograph.
I call it a 3-D router pantograph because in addition to controlling x and y
it can also control the depth of cut because it has a rigid frame
and a tilting route on the back.
So that you can use it to copy 3-D objects into other 3D effects.
And in this video I'm going to go through the construction of this machine.
I put together a very detailed set of plans.
And I'm using those plans in this video to construct the pantograph.
I start it by printing 1 to 1 templates of my router mounts.
Pasting those together into a big sheet
and then gluing that onto a piece of 3/4 inch thick birch plywood.
And then cutting all that stuff out on the bandsaw.
If you work carefully and have a fine blade in the bandsaw
it's possible to follow lines with surprising accuracy.
I cut all the straight pieces out from hard maple.
Here I'm marking all the positions for all the holes that I need to drill
for all the pivots in the pantograph.
Now the holes I drilled ended up being very, very tight for a piece of 3/8 inch rod.
So I made a sort of reamer out of 3/8th inch rod
which I'd use to expand the holes a little bit, so the shaft fits more easily.
I made that reamer by cutting a lengthwise slot
near the end of one of my pieces of 3/16th inch steel shaft.
All the parts for the pantograph are just butt-joined together with glue.
It's not a high stress application so that's actually quite adequate.
I do have to be careful getting everything reasonably lined up.
Clamps often cause things to slip so weighing thngs
down, instead of clamping, actually helps alot.
Hmm, now which way does this part go on again?
Let's check that against the 1 to 1 drawings.
Ok, now I know.
Again, weighing things down for clamping.
Useful to have a little bit of excercise equipment around.
Comes in handy in the shop.
To get the other half of my links aligned
I actually put pieces of my steel rod in there.
And that really helps line things up as I squeeze it together.
Now I'll just check that with a square.
Yeah, looks good.
And here's the bottom half of my mount all glued up.
The holes in my router mount were also very, very tight so
I rimmed those out a little bit to make it easier to assemble the whole thing.
I'm using four 3/16th inch steel rods to go in all the shaft holes.
That way I have more pins to line things up as I assemble it. Ready?
Now let's check that with a square.
That looks good.
So let's pry it apart, a bit again, so I can get some glue in there.
Looks all right.
So now let's pop that thing together.
Reaming out both holes together kind of makes up for any
misalignment there might be between the two of them.
And that way the shaft slides in there nice and easily.
Here's my fixed mount for the pantograph.
Now the fixed mount is actually on a pivoting axis
which is what gives the pantograph it's third dimension.
The whole mount is just made out of a few pieces of plywood glued together
without any dowels or anything.
Now I have to put the pantograph links into the fixed mount.
Now this part is a bit tricky because you have to get the orientation just right.
I actually had to film this several times again because I got it wrong the first time.
So, here's sticking my shaft in there.
It's a little bit sticky but that's ok.
Going to be a bit tight.
And now pushing the shaft all the way through.
Now putting the router mount link in there.
This part is also a bit tricky to make sure you have the right holes.
I've actually misassembled my own quite a few times.
But this is the correct way for the 1/2 magnification.
Now here's adding the pin for tracing my actual pattern.
And I put a locking knob on there where I can set the height of it.
Which also sets how deep my router cuts.
There's a few chamfers that need to be cut out of the mechanism here and there
to get the full range of motion.
It's easiest to just no cut these and then once the things put together
look at where it bumps and cut it out with a knife.
So here's the pantograph in 1/2 scale magnification.
So let's switch that over to the 1/3 position.
So we just have to take out 2 of the pins.
Now with the pins out the mount just slides diagonaly.
And then we put the pins in the other sets of holes.
And now the things configured for one third magnification.
So here's the pantograph all done.
I'll make more videos showing all the things that this thing can do.
And if you want to build an exact copy of it
I do have a set of plans available at my website that you can buy.