weak at the base, because of the small base footprint (I could be wrong). Nevertheless, I don't want to spend that much money for something I can't put my hands on and try out. It may indeed work and I thank you for the input. (perhaps this may be my choice, don't know)
and temporarily bolted to it (my table top is full of threaded inserts for jigs). The arm is a copy of commercial gadgets, really just a simple double plate girder made up from biscuit-jointed MDF. The "pin" itself is an old 1/4" bearing guided router cutter (carbide inserts removed).
either make a huge table for support, or else to go back to a static workpiece and a free router with a bearing guided bit.
*Thanks for the suggestion. Mine will have to be stronger, however, as I will do a lot of workpieces. I can't do the static thing with bearings because the bearings don't hold up. (if the bearings go south, I can mess up my pattern and the workpiece.Again, thanks
woodstuff wrote: ...
Works well; your note earlier about needing to be really strong I'd say really "not so much" -- the guide pin/holder doesn't see much real force; simply that required to follow the pattern. If you push too hard you just make it more difficult to follow the pattern smoothly.
The thing you need more than pure strength is inflexible which a chunk of maple or white oak or other dense hardwood gives. I don't recall the characteristics to Al alloys by number otomh; if go that route be sure that 1/2" Al is rigid enough it doesn't vibrate--the wood solution is good about absorbing that.
The last comment I intended to add earlier on pin selection -- the drill rod has the advantage you can get any diameter you want for special offsets from the template. Generally the 1/16 difference between the common rod stock is good enough but every once't in a great while there's a reason for something more precise.
Again, the key is to ensure the mounting hole is sized for a press/interference fit. I make and center them by drilling the hole first, use a longer pin initially to locate relative to the spindle/collet then cut the pin to length and polish ends.
You'll like using it much better if you add a starting pin to the router table, too, if you don't already have provisions for one.
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Or a steel bushing.
dpb wrote: ...
OK, if that's 1/2" sq bar it'll be plenty stout enough. Was thinking of flat then realized only gave the one dimension so must be square, sorry...
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It doesn't. You don't put appreciable force on the pin. You're only trying to guide with it, not use it as a fulcrum.
"woodstuff" wrote
Putting the arm on something that has to be relocated every time it is set up sounds like the sort of nightmare I avoid like the plague. Every setup I use gets designed so the whole thing is set up as soon as I place it. Add to that the fact that the fence may have some play in it makes another reason why I would not like it.
Some have said that there is no force on the pin. I disagree. It is correct to say that ideally, there is no force on the pin, but you all know the difference between theory and reality. (there is a joke in there, somewhere )
The idea is that you control the movement of the workpiece precisely, and only lightly touch the pin to the template. In my experience, the router will sometimes grab some grain and slam the workpiece into the pin. If the pin gives, you just messed up your workpiece. I say make the arm and pin hell for stout.
I have a setup like the one in the link that is homemade. The big difference is that I have my arm mounted to the saw table with the location fixed through drilled and tapped holes in the saw table. My hardwood arm has steel bushed holes undersized for 5/16" bolts, then I drilled a snug
5/16 hole with the drillpress, then used that as a guide to drill and tap the cast iron table saw surface, after I located the pin in the arm by chucking it in the router, then clamped the arm to the table. When I drilled the saw, I knew that the pin was in the right place, and the arm would be in the right place every time I mounted the arm.I welded some 1/4" rod on the top of the bolts (fine thread) to use the bolts as wing nuts, and still be able to put a wrench to the bolt head to torque it down. The pin is a cut off bolt, threaded into the arm, with a nut on each side to keep it rigid. I can turn the bolt to set the height (flat ground into the pin threads on the top side of the arm) then tighten the nuts to keep it where I want it.
I enjoy using my setup, and find it has many more uses than making signs.
*Yes, I thought about the possible play and having to set it up again. Indeed, I need this table saw for other uses and don't want to tie it up for too long a period. My fence is stronger than the beismeyer, and doesn't have much play, but the setup problem is still there, or the re-setup problem. Time is of the essence, as I have several hundred pieces to cut. *There isn't much force on the pin, but there is some, as I had some experience with doing some samples with a router and bearing when the bit pulled it toward the workpiece. **One of the reasons I don't want to do this with a bearing is because I want to be able to take partial cuts to prevent shearing on end-grain areas. (I have a pile of messed up ones already, don't need more). The other reason for the pin router is that bearings don't hold up to production very well. But yes, there is some force, for sure. *Thanks for your post, and I may do just that, but on another place, as I have an old shaper that has a wind that I don't use much. (darn, a few years ago I scrapped out an old delta table saw and now wish I hadn't). surely mounting onto cast iron or steel would be much better. My workpieces are 6"x12", so I don't need much room.
*Tomorrow AM, I will start to work on making this and we'll see what happens. By the way, I have plenty of scrap steel and I can cut, drill, tap, and weld, so something somehow will happen.
"woodstuff" wrote
Good luck. Let us know how it develops, if you would. You might come up with some ideas someone else can use.
Morgans wrote: ...
I did _NOT_ say there was "no force", I did say there is not a great deal of force. I also suggested that the pin should be steel and mounted solidly...
If it grabs and pulls, that means you're cutting downhill -- as the doctor said when told "it hurts when I do that", "Don't do that!"
_ALWAYS_ use a climb cut. It's hard enough to control a router and a fixed workpiece in downhill fashion; it's seriously dangerous w/ a hand guided workpiece.
As noted, use a starting pin (or pins for multiple locations) and feed in the proper direction and you'll always be against the cutting direction and the work will be pushed away from the pin instead of pulled into it.
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Put the pin at the end of a short-stroke pneumatic piston controlled by a two-way foot pedal. People, somehow, never seem to think how they are going to get the work on and off. Onsrud makes a few beauties can can give you some inspirational clues. Delta made one, years ago, where you could have the motor either overhead or below the table. IOW it doubled as a shaper. Induction motor. Then there is the venerable RU50, can be had used cheaply. Voltage and phase can be a bit of a prob.
So I built one this weekend, just for the fun of it. It's a 17" MDF arm type (it only fastens to one side of the table). The arm itself is a 3" piece of MDF which is vertical, glued to 4" piece of MDF which is horizontal. I made the pin holder detachable so I could swap out
1/2" and 1/4" pins. I took two pieces of 2.5" x 2.5" x 3/4" oak, clamped them together, and drilled a 1/4" hole between them to hold the pin. I sanded the inside of one piece slightly (to make the hole just slightly smaller than 1/4"), and attached the piece to the MDF using two bolts with wing-nuts on either side of the pin hole. Because I can tighten/loosen the wing-nuts easily, I can easily adjust the height of the pin. I had planned to bolt the whole thing to the router table, but it seems to hold quite well with just a couple of clamps!I tested it, and it has less than 1/2 mm give for about 1 pound of pressure in one direction, and 1/4 mm in the other...
So, now I have a pin-router! Now I just have to think of a good project I can use it on....
John
Now you are entering my favorite territory of woodworking, pattern making. The pattern maker is the top guy in the shop. I love laying out and making patterns. I prefer perfect arcs as opposed to close arcs cut on a bandsaw sanded to near perfect.
Mission oak end tables and coffee table. They have long upswing arcs cut into the underside of some of the aprons. Make the patterns using a router as a compass by mounting it to a thin plank of plywood to use as a trammel. Make sense? Then cut the patterns from MDF using few passes of increasing depth.
I've cut some items like this with 15' radii (sp) and had to do the layout on the floor with chalk lines, very cool.
I'm kind of toying with the idea of doing inlay... My thought is this: I can buy some cheap plastic letters over at the dollar store, glue them (backwards of course) and a border onto the back of my workpiece with some sort of removable glue. I then set the router to
1/4" above the table, and route those carefully into the workpiece (maybe two passes to reduce resistance). I then spray the back of the worksheet (letters and all) with PAM, or other non-sticky stuff. I take some sort of clay / epoxy (still working out what would work good here), and mold that around my letters. Let it dry, so it's hard, remove it, and now I have an inverse pattern! Stick that to my inlay material, and make an exact copy of that, which should theoretically fit exactly into my pattern out front.Remove the letters, sand off the PAM, glue and anything else, touch up the inlay a bit with a file so it actually fits, and voila!
I'll let you all know how (if) it works! (Wish me luck)
John
A little hard to follow all of that. I think for this type of operation what might be easier is an actual "overarm pin router" where the router is above the table and the pin is on the table. You are blind in one way or the other you either can't see the pattern or you can't see the cutter but with an overarm pin router you can at least see the bit so you can tell if how the cutting is going.
These units are big behemoths that can weight tons (literally) but you can get them second hand really cheap sometimes because they have fallen a bit out of favor.
On ebay an expensive one:
My pin router, including everything was $25... It might not be ideal, but I think it will get the job done... (if I did have that sort of money, I think I'd be saving up for a decent CNC router.... ahhh, the dreams....). Anyways, I'm going to try to do some house number inlays, but it will likely have to wait until the weekend at this point...
Woodstuff -- thanks for starting this thread. How's your setup going?
John
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