sawzall

I enjoy building the machines, as much as making the wood..

I built this router duplicator about 3 years ago.. JUST to make parts for my 1948 oldsmobile woodie wagon..

I had a silly ideas that I might manufacture these and sell them...

BUT..

the market is likely too small, and the price would be pretty steep..

anyway.. before I show.. let me tell


this is a picture of typical "woodie wagon" wood.. this is NOT for my oldsmobile.. but rather for a 1946 ford sportsman.. (which is even more rare!)

as you can tell.. theres really no straight edge.. originally.. huge shapers were employed to make these pieces.. and its likely that the manufacturers lost money on each one..






heres a pic of the router duplicator..



it is in the "attic" of my garage.. so photos are tough.. I am so pressed for room that I had to disassemble the machine to move it upstairs..(which is a story in and of itself..)

anyhow:




above.. you can see the "working" area.. of the machine.. basically on the left I have an aluminum insert holding a "used up" router bit as a stylus. (it traces the pattern)

on the right you can see a "hole" this is where my router drops in from above..


below you can see the top view of the fixed base I am using on the duplicator ..



the most difficult part of this explanation is to show how the machine articulates.. but the next few photos should provide some insight..




and of course.. counter balance is Important.. VERY important..heres a shot of my "low buck" counter balance.. (essentially scrap metal i have accumulated.. along with some parts of an old bench press set..)



so far.. I have made 4 pieces with it..

heres a pic of a piece when I was "partway" though with it..





hopefully some viewers out there can suggest improvements?

at this point this would be able to duplicate something about 18 tall by 9 wide my about 24 inches long..

I could easily go larger if necessary..

as you can imagine. there are lots of little nuances that are important to recognize when using a tool like this..
to give you an idea..

1. setup is critical.. I accidentally misaligned one piece and wasted about 4 hours and 4 board feet on day

2. speed and feed.. I use a variable speed router.. and I still run into issues with this

3. counterbalance.. through experience i have learned to work with the balance.. and add or remove weights for certain areas of the work envelope.. as I go.. there are numerous places on this machine to add balance..

4. DUMB LUCK.. sometimes. no matter how careful.. you run into that unforeseen knot or defect and you still get all messed up..

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harrysin

Talk about ingenious, isn't it true that necessity is the mother of invention?

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Harry