In this video I'm gonna finish the construction
of my router copy carving machine.
In my previous video I finished the carriage that moves side to side.
So, this part is mostly done.
Next, I need to make a frame for the whole thing.
And so here's this carriage I just built.
And then this whole frame is gonna roll back and forth.
So, this is just gonna be made out of pieces of 2 by 4.
And here I've got some scraps of construction lumber.
These pieces should be long enough. They're a little bit rough.
So, I'll plane those down. And put them on the jointer
So they'll be nice and straight and accurate.
So, on the plans I've got this one and this one
that goes off at a diagonal.
And I didn't mark the length or the angle
on my plan here. But I've got a better way of making sure these fit.
If I just use the length and the angle it'd be hard to get it right.
So, I put this piece against here.
And I know this has to be offset by 20 centimeters in the back.
On that side. So I set that to 20 centimeters.
And then I put a spacer in here.
And I'm just gonna mark where I put that.
So, with a spacer in here I can now cut this angle off.
And then afterwards I'm just gonna flip this thing over
arrange it the same way again and cut this thing off
to line up exactly with this.
So, I cut them in this orientation
But on the actual machine they'll be more like this.
So, this is how the carriage goes together.
It's kind of bulky so I'm just gonna put it together with screws.
So that way I could still take it apart if I'm not using it.
So, here's what I've got so far, test-assembled on the floor.
So, this slides like that. And then this slides like so.
And, this box here is actually for
putting heavy stuff into.
So that I can counter-weight it.
So that I don't get fatigued from the weight of the router working on here.
So, that will stick out just a little bit.
In the plans, I've got a plywood base for the whole thing.
I think I won't bother 'cause this is very bulky and I can just clamp
those rails to my workbench when I'm using it.
So, here's my router thing. And the cutter is here.
And I need to put a follower on here that has the same shape as this.
So, for my router pantograph I just put a wooden knob on the end of a shaft
to clamp that in there. But, I don't really have a good way of
clamping on here. So, what I'm thinking of doing
is to just, instead of using a shaft, use a 1/4 inch threaded rod.
And then just clamp that on there.
Like that, with a nut on either side
through a hole in here.
Except the router bit actually sticks out quite a ways here.
So, that needs to be fairly long to get to the same depth as that router.
But in the mean time the router actually sticks out quite a bit here so
what I'm thinking I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna put this in here
to thicken that material up a little bit and then I have a lot more material
for this to hold in. And that way I get a much better hold.
Well, that works out.
Now I just need to create a knob to match the shape of my router bit.
So, I cut out a disc that's just a bit bigger than the router bit.
And there's a hole slightly smaller than the 1/4 inch threaded rod here.
So, now I'm just gonna screw that in there.
It's nice and tight.
If it wasn't tight enough I could always glue it.
So, now I put the threaded rod through a hole in here that will serve as a bearing.
I put some tape on here just to protect it
as I put the drill on here.
Without messing up the threads, hopefully.
Well, I think that's pretty close.
So, now I have this thing temporarily rigged up on my table saw.
So, I'll just clamp the side rail to the table saw.
This little clamp here is as a front stop.
And then this rail is also clamped on here.
And I clamped on a piece of plywood as a work surface.
And the next thing I have to do is I have to check that the alignment is all good.
So, the next alignment is to make sure that those shafts
are parallel in that direction. And I'm just looking along here.
I can tell that this shaft is a little bit higher in this position.
On this side. So, I need to drop this side down a little bit.
And the best way to do that is to insert a little shim in here.
So, here's my shim.
Let's put that here.
And, let's put this back on.
And, let's check that again.
That's good and parallel. Just need to tighten this up
to make up for the slack I've just introduced.
So, now I gotta check that this is the same height on both sides.
So, I've got 6.3 here. And 6.8 here.
So, that means I need to lift this whole side up.
So, I need to put more shims underneath this 2 x 4.
Another alignment check I need to do is just
with a square thing on here and a bit.
I have to make sure those are about the same length.
And then the important thing is as I tilt
this back and forth.
That bit needs to always stay
level on the surface if my follower is.
And if you watch that very closely you can see
it's digging in towards the back a little bit.
But tilting this way.
It actually has... Tends to climb up a little bit.
What that tells me is my router is a little bit further this direction.
So, if I brought that router just a little bit forward.
That would make it the same space.
But it's probably easier to move the follower.
A more intuitive way to check this might be to just put this thing
out here like that.
And then we make sure that, that shaft
is the same height above the table on both sides.
And as long as that table's flat
I should have the follower at exactly the same height
above the table as the router bit.
And you can see here
there's about a millimeter
millimeter and a half that the router bit is lower
than the follower.
So, I should bring that follower down by just a millimeter and a half
to bring it in line with the router.
So, my first idea was to just enlarge this hole.
So I could mount this thing a little bit further that way.
But, I had a better idea which is, I just took this off.
And I enlarged those holes a little bit.
So that there's a little bit of sideways leeway this way.
So, now if I'm gonna screw the back on
if I just use washers instead of the counter-sinks
I can then slide this in the perfect position and then tighten the screws.
So, now I can slide this mount back and forth just a wee bit.
And I've tweaked it a fair bit.
And now if I put both of those down there
that touches the surface along the whole rotation.
Well, I think I'm ready to give this thing a whirl.
Got my wrench screwed down as the original
And here's where I'm gonna carve the wrench.
So, let's see how it goes.
Well, here's the original and the copy.
Well, I did a little bit of cleaning up. So, here's my wrench.
And the carved one. Not bad for a first carving, I think.
So, that's my router copy carving machine.
I also have a detailed set of plans available on my website.
Woodgears. ca