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Has anyone made one of the woodsmith plans style router milling machines or anything similar? I have a design in progress and need to decide whether to use a 1 1/4HP plunge router or a 2/3HP trimmer router. This is strictly a hobby project for machining ornamental table legs etc. so speed and so on aren't necessarily a very high priority.
Attachment 14159
Col.
Hi Walney Col - welcome to HomemadeTools.net :welcome:
I'll move your question into our Tools in Progress subforum so you can get some feedback.
Hi i have 2 one is a very expensive copy lathe and the other is one i made many years ago quite simple all on 2 parallel tubes and some cogs a plate under the router and bolts to give the height difference to can set up quite a easy 1/4" router to then copy the template with a piece of ply and a ball baring to follow the template
i will take some time to do some drawings soon
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walney Col
I have not made one of these wondefrul machines; however, I am on the side of "Tim, The Tool Man Taylor, from Home Improvement years ago. Power!. I prefer to have a little too much that I can alter downward, instead of having too little. Machining ornamental legs may require torque that the smaller router doesn't have. I always use the "Binford 280ZX," for all my projects (meaning the most I can get for my money at the time).Quote:
Originally Posted by Walney Col
I would recommend the higher HP since you might be working in hard wood at higher speeds and don't want to bog down (burn the wood) or run out of power. In addition, the more complex your cutting tools, the more power you would like to have.
Depending on the cuts you are making, similar to a metal machine lathe, I would also recommend several passes rather than trying to remove too much stock in one pass. I have watched wonderfully dangerous explosions happen both with metal and wood lathes, and it gets pretty ugly and dangerous. Metal working tends to function slower with more power, but you will need to balance spinning a leg at the right speed (or not) with the speed of the router. Double action (spinning a leg while routing a design at the same time requires some coordination of speed (spinning RPMs) and travel (length travel with the router).
Nice machine!
Thanks for the imput guys. The version I'm planning will be able to copy existing profiled legs (or their templates) as well as doing barley/rope twists and taper turning etc. I don't imagine the work piece will ever spin at more than 30rpm so that's one potential danger I won't be facing. The size of the router bits can be pretty large, especially cove bits, and unlike the original design above I do plan on adding an automated left-right feed for the router so getting the bit bogged down could be potentially dodgy.
I'll attach a sketchup image of my design which is still in the late planning stages and if anyone has any comments they'd be most welcome.
Attachment 14242
The full sketchup plans can be downloaded from here if anyone cares to take a look.
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/mod...6-8113e1ab484e
Col.
I would definitely go for HP if you're planning on have larger bits. The 2/3 HP router excel at trimming edges, but thats really only what the machine is built for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Walney Col
There are these days even more powerful machines that are quite small and handy, perfect for fixed instalment, that I would have a look at too and compare before I buy one. Best thing is to go to a professional hardware store, and have them show and tell you about the machine (in depth). Then when you made up your mind, you can always buy it online if the price differs too much.
Good luck with your project!
/Fredrik
I've finally got most of the bits cut and started putting it all together. It'll be at least a couple of weeks before there's anything really worth showing but I've done a short video outlining it's most useful features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfSScCSpbpA
Col.
I've finished enough parts to start assembling it now so I've made a 10 minute video just to let folks know that progress IS actually being made!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3psajRT8QY
Col.
Progress is always good.
Part 2 of the router lathe build is now ready to watch and deals with determining the locations for the gear mounting holes on the gear carrier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYALo7OAss4
Col.
A short demo of the feed mechanism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1PlkP_NnKI&t=2s
Col.
The latest video in the router lathe build is now on youtube and documents installing the carriage assembly. A couple of minor jobs still remain to be done but basically it's now ready for use and I hope to upload a video showing it's fist cuts within a few days.
Attachment 15922
Attachment 15923
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eunwHvSPiDg
Col.
My new router lathe got it's first taste of sawdust today. :-)
Lots of lessons to be learned from it, not least of which is if you're going to make something round out of rectangular stock for heaven's sake save yourself a whole load of time and knock the corners off on the bansaw before you start. Another lesson I learned as I began to turn the feed rate up a bit is I really (REALLY) need to make some sort of guard in an attempt to keep at least some of the chips off me. ;-)
Having said that it went pretty well. It was only 4 degrees above freezing in the shed today so I didn't fancy staying out for long but in a little over 20 minutes I'd set the machine up for planing and made 4 progressively faster 3mm deep cuts with a 1" flat bottomed cutter with the photo showing it approaching the end of the last one. Tomorrow (all things being equal) I hope to finish rounding it and make a start on some sort of spiral cuts. I only have a limited number of cove cutters (1/2 inch and 1 inch) and the 1" cutter only has a 1/4" shank so I'm not sure how it'll cope but I plan on giving it a go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezz7pvrlI3k
Col.
First spiral cuts...
Attachment 16313
It all went off quite well. No big surprises and the machine worked exactly as expected withe the minor exception of having a bit more play in the vertical carriage than I'd have liked. It has a carriage lock which prevents it's crew from turning (so that vibration can't gradually increase it's depth of cut) but with hindsight I should have come up with a lock for the slide rather than the screw because the small amout of play that exists in the slide gets amplified the longer the router bit you use and as you can see in the photo it's leaving telltale chatter markes in the spirals. Not a big deal to fix, thankfully, and the video should be uploaded by tomorrow morning.
Col.
Congratulations Col! First articles that are that good always make ones day! Look forward to the video and what you end up doing with the z axis lock. Thanks for sharing this great build with us! ~PJ
Thanks PJs, much appreciated.
This is a video of the first spiral cuts I did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DOQWiexOQ
Col.
The replacment z-axis lock will work along the same lines as the exiting copying-slide lock:-
Attachment 16345
I cut 4 opposing spirals in my test piece today. I used mole grips to clamp the vertical carriage and I'm happy to say it got rid of most of the chatter so that's going to be an easy fix.
Attachment 16346
The missus like it so much she wants me to use it for something and I suggested as the central leg of a small table so there might well be a video of that in the not too distant future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAm4AygzWpY
Col.
