| This router duplicator was designed and built by my good friend Jerry Moran in the last months before he retired in the Spring of 2006. Almost every day, Jerry would bring home a new part or a newly modified part to be tested. The final product is a well-balanced, smooth-working tool like no other I've used to accurately duplicate three dimensional objects. The stylus and router bit are 10 inches apart. The x-axis has 29 inches of travel. The y-axis has 13 inches of travel and the z-axis has 6 inches of travel. |
There are 12 stylus rods varying in size from 1/16 inch up to
1/2 inch. Each stylus has a flat tip and a
companion bull nose tip. Stylus rods that are
smaller in diameter than the router bit can be used to make outside
cuts while stylus rods that are larger in diameter than the router
bit can be used to make inside cuts. For example, if
you are making a bowl using a 1/4 inch router bit,
you can change the stylus from 1/8 inch, for the outside of the bowl, to a
1/2 inch stylus to cut the inside of the bowl.
The y-axis controls the router and stylus movements from front to back. The z-axis controls the router and stylus up and down movement. The z-axis has a locking mechanism to control the cutting depth of the router blade. Normally, the router bit and stylus are set to the same depth and the z-axis locking mechanism is used for depth control. However, the stylus can also be used to control the cutting depth. There are times when you would want to set the stylus longer than the router bit to make a shallower cut than exists in the master piece that is being duplicated. Conversely, there are times when you would want to set the stylus shorter than the router bit to make a deeper cut than exists in the master piece that is being duplicated. The router duplicator weighs over one hundred pounds. To keep the movement dampened and avoid unwanted gyrations, a twenty pound count weight was added. To date, I have used my router duplicator to cut handles for Tai Chi wooden practice swords, clock gears, and turkey calls. I have just barely begun exploring the uses for this remarkable machine. So, again, a big thanks goes out to my good friend Jerry Moran for making my dream of owning a router duplicator a reality. That's Jerry on the right. |