Woodsmith style router miller experience anyone?

[Walney Col]

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.

Col.

[Jon]

Hi Walney Col - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

I'll move your question into our Tools in Progress subforum so you can get some feedback.

[cyme]

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

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.

Col.

[Meticularius]

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.

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).

[toyvolvo]

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!

[Walney Col]

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.



The full sketchup plans can be downloaded from here if anyone cares to take a look.
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/mod...6-8113e1ab484e

Col.

[info@fral.se]

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 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.

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

[Walney Col]

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.

Col.

[Walney 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!

Col.

[pfredX1]

Progress is always good.