This video is about carving 3-D indented letters
with my router pantograph.
My pantograph not only controls the position of the router
but also it's depth. Which allows me to carve these
profile letters that actually have a variable depth of cut
along the whole letter.
The way the pantograph works
is I have a conical follower
which follows the grooves in the template.
And a V-bit that is the same shape as the conical follower.
Now if I have a wider gap
in my template as you can see here
then the conical follower can dip deeper into that template
which will tilt the whole pantograph forward
and that, in turn, will drive the V-shaped cutter
deeper into my stock which will make for a deeper, wider cut.
So here's my V-shaped bit that carved out the letters.
And to go along with this V-shaped bit
I have a conical follower thats got the same angle as the bit.
And that follower follows in the grooves of the template.
And when the template is wider it dips deeper.
And where it's not as wide
it rides further up which then controls the depth of cut
and width of the groove that my V-shaped bit will cut.
To make the template
I start with letter shapes
that I printed with my online stencil generator.
And I glue those onto pieces of half inch plywood.
Before cutting them out I drill some holes in some of the corners
which will make it much easier to turn around with the bandsaw blade.
And then I seperate them into individual letters on the table saw.
And then I cut the letters out on the bandsaw.
It's quite ok to just make a cut from the outside into the letter
because I don't have to follow that extra cut that I made.
Next I glue the letters down onto a thin piece of plywood as a backer,
This is important to hold the template together
as well as to support the inside bits of letters like D or A.
Although I never made a complete alphabet of letters
every time I want to spell a new sign I just figure out which letters I'm missing
and then I make new ones to add to the collection.
The thin backing plywood extends
a little bit beyond the actual blocks for my letters itself.
And that plywood then slips into a slot
on my template holder.
And that template holder can hold a whole words worth of letters.
And I have these rails on either side with the groove in them
that then hold the letters in place while I'm doing the routing.
Now I need a follower for my template
that's the same shape as my V cutting router bit.
So I made a conical follower
by just holding a hand plane to a spinning piece of wood in my drill press.
I could have used a lathe but I don't have the right kind of chuck for it.
I added a pin to the tip of my follower cone.
That way I don't accidentily slip out of my template groove
when I get to the end of a thin line.
Setting the height of my follower cone is critical.
Depending on how high I set it I end up with letters
that are really skinny or really bold.
Once I have everything all set up
carving the actual sign goes really fast.
I don't have to be really careful about following the lines
because my cone just naturally follows the grooves.
So here's a relitively deep-cut sign
using 1/2 scale on my pantograph.
And here's the same sign carved 1/3 scale
and 1/2 scale. Both from the same template.
And here is experimenting with font weight.
Also all from the same template.