My Homemade Pantograph

JaktUpCues

JaktUpCues

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This is my first attempt at making my own pantograph. I still have a few more tweeks and I need to get some patterns before I can test is better, but just tracing a stencil worked well. I just need something thicker where the pen/punch will stay on track. It is sitting on 2 heavy duty drawer sliders that allow it go up and down and other drawer sliders for left and right. The basic idea is there, I just need to make more time to improve it. Materials cost me $60 (already had the dremel and flex shaft) and it took me about 4 hours to build.

Feedback welcome.







 
JaktUpCues said:
This is my first attempt at making my own pantograph. I still have a few more tweeks and I need to get some patterns before I can test is better, but just tracing a stencil worked well. I just need something thicker where the pen/punch will stay on track. It is sitting on 2 heavy duty drawer sliders that allow it go up and down and other drawer sliders for left and right. The basic idea is there, I just need to make more time to improve it. Materials cost me $60 (already had the dremel and flex shaft) and it took me about 4 hours to build.

Feedback welcome.







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Why do you want to build your own? At best it will do average to horrible work. You can probably still find pantograph's collecting dust in the back of sign and trophy shops you can have for like nothing. Since CNC they are worth pretty much nothing. Have you looked for one? I have a Gorton P 1-2 that cost close to $18,000.00 when new I got for $500.00 in perfect working condition. It by the way can for a small amount be converted to CNC if you want to later.

Here is an example
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pantograph-...642?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c333c1c0a
 
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I made it b/c I enjoy making things. It was a project that I enjoyed making with my son. I don't have the extra cash flow to spend on a CNC machine right now. I live in a very small town, so no, there are no extra CNC machines laying around town and I'm not paying double the price of one just to have it shipped. Thanks for the advice
 
I made it b/c I enjoy making things. It was a project that I enjoyed making with my son. I don't have the extra cash flow to spend on a CNC machine right now. I live in a very small town, so no, there are no extra CNC machines laying around town and I'm not paying double the price of one just to have it shipped. Thanks for the advice
 
JaktUpCues said:
I made it b/c I enjoy making things. It was a project that I enjoyed making with my son. I don't have the extra cash flow to spend on a CNC machine right now. I live in a very small town, so no, there are no extra CNC machines laying around town and I'm not paying double the price of one just to have it shipped. Thanks for the advice
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Good for you...keep up the good work and live and learn regardless of out comes the time spent with your son is priceless.
 
JaktUpCues said:
I made it b/c I enjoy making things. It was a project that I enjoyed making with my son. I don't have the extra cash flow to spend on a CNC machine right now. I live in a very small town, so no, there are no extra CNC machines laying around town and I'm not paying double the price of one just to have it shipped. Thanks for the advice
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I am not saying get a CNC, I am saying exactly the opposite. You can get a good manual machine very cheap that will do top notch work since most shops now use CNC and the older manual machines are gathering dust. It sounds like you want to build cues, why not be doing good work right out of the box with the right tools. I am sorry If I offended you offering advice.
 
I like it, hope it works for you bud....and if it doesnt at least knowledge will be gained in the process.....good luck.....id be interested in seeing pic's in future on how it does....thanks, don.
 
I didn't even have to click on the video, I recognized It from the guitar trade, and videos as soon as I saw the picture. If You have the money to spare and just want something to play with a experiment with, then I see no issue with that. Trying knew things and trying to make them work will come in handy down the road. Spending the time making it with your son is also priceless, and seems like a reasonably priced project to include Him in. You could spend more then that with him on a science fair project, and If it doesn't work out for inlays you could always modify It for fun engraving projects that don't require as much precision. I'm sure your son would enjoy that.

As far as serious cue work though I would agree that It may not end up being the most productive or rigid piece of equipment. Who knows though, I have never built one, so i can't say that from experience, and would be interested in how it works out for ya as well. I have built one from machine parts and aluminum before though, and I have to say that was a huge learning curve, and a lot of tweaking to get results that were somewhat except-able. Of coarse most of us are always striving for better, and I'm no different in that respect.

Greg
 
There is another five minutes of my life that I won't get back.
 
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You are going to find that with a panto-graph the hard part is the templates. I have a P1-2 Gorton as well and there is methods of making your own templates using the machine to build it's own. Being able to scale it 2-1 really helps in this regard. I would draw my inlay shapes 4 times the size I wanted to end up and cut them out on a scroll saw. Then use the panto machine to cut my templates at half the size of my original. Then when doing the actual cutting of the pockets and parts I would reduce the size in half again. You also can use the same templates for male and female parts by using different size stylus to offset your cutter. Your machine is only 1-1 so that is going to make building templates very difficult, not impossible but difficult.
 
You will definately learn something from this experiment.
1st will be the instability of the ply base, 2nd will be the fulcrum for the dremel and stylis.
If the stylis and the dremel were linked, you could then do 3d panto work.
Have fun.
There is lots of info around on how to work with panto machines as well.
 
thanks for the feedback. it was just a project/experiment. I'm not going to use it if it doesn't work. Ive wanted to make one for awhile just to see if I could. If it doesn't work , which it probably wont, then no harm done and I can just use it to make my kids some name signs lol
 
Looks like a cool and fun little project, especially considering the time with the son.

I say well done! :thumbup:




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JaktUpCues said:
I made it b/c I enjoy making things. It was a project that I enjoyed making with my son. I don't have the extra cash flow to spend on a CNC machine right now. I live in a very small town, so no, there are no extra CNC machines laying around town and I'm not paying double the price of one just to have it shipped. Thanks for the advice
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I think you could have stopped at "Because I enjoy making things" and you did it with your son, there are no greater reasons. Enjoy the memories as I am sure your son will.
 
Imagine that, wanting to build something instead of buying it. That's so old fashioned. Next thing I know you'll want to build something else you could buy. What are you teaching your son and what will he think of you in the years to come? Good for you.
 
Paul Dayton said:
Imagine that, wanting to build something instead of buying it. That's so old fashioned. Next thing I know you'll want to build something else you could buy. What are you teaching your son and what will he think of you in the years to come? Good for you.
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Yep what PAUL said.
 
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