Well, I started the lathe duplicator and I have made some progress. As noted last week, this is not my design and I am making several changes to fit my shop size and equipment.

http://thiswoodwork.com/router-lathe-duplicator/

I started out by milling the large pieces for the sides and bottom. All the wood, for this project, is from the lumber rack or scrap bin.

The first obstacle was how to mount the duplicator and still allow use of many of the jigs already built for my lathe. I am not completely convinced this end mounting is going to be sturdy enough to hold the bed of the duplicator without movement. I may need to addition support/alignment pieces.

The duplicator base has two supported aluminum rails.I milled the rail supports using a large chamfering bit on both sides of a long piece of stock.

The bit wasn't quite large enough to remove all of the material to allow the aluminum angle to fit completely into the cuts.

Who says, I never use hand tools! The block plane made quick work of the little lip.

Test fitting the aluminum piece.

The rail supports ripped from the milled piece

The supports fastened to the sides.

The aluminum installed. The screws, holding the rails, are place near the edges of the metal to avoid the path of the bearing on the movable router mount.

Adding the base and end pieces. The end pieces are temporarily fastened. One end must be removed to install the movable router mount.

Now for the tricky part. It took me about a day to figure out the best way to get the dimensions just right. The movable router mount rolls between the two aluminum rails on bearings. A $5 set of roller blades from the local thrift store contains plenty of bearings. The critical thing here is to get the filler piece between the two bearing mounts to be the correct width. Too narrow and the fit will be sloppy. Too wide and the mount will be tight and move smoothly.

The router mount ready for the bearings. I made it using the same technique as the rail supports. The large holes are relief holes for the bearing mounting hardware. I should note that these are Asian bearings, which means metric hardware for the best fit. Fortunately, Lowes had what I needed.

The movable mount in place

Now that the mount, which moves parallel to the lathe bed, is finished, the next step is to get the platform for the router installed. This platform moves perpendicular to the lathe bed. Due to the lathe design and pre-existing requirements, I needed to raise this platform.

These runners support the slides on the underside of the platform. I used under drawer slides. They were a little long but a hacksaw fixed that! I also added some additional holes to both sections of the slides for extra screw holding power.

The platform setting in place but not fastened

I decided to use my trim router rather than a full sized router for the duplicator. These pieces will trap the body of the router. The extra cutout at the top of the body hole allows access to the router switch. I still need to modify the “front†holder to fit around features of the router body.

 

There’s still a lot more to do and some unanswered design questions. However, we leave tomorrow for my Navy squadron reunion VA-65 Tigers!

 

Save Turning!

 

 

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time Traveler and Purveyor of the Universe's Finest Custom Rolling Pins!

I don't turn, but it is very interesting to see what and how you are doing this. Very well done!

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Harry Brink
Bulldog Woodworking
Montana

Lew that is outstanding! Nice original design from the maker, and you are making it fit your application. That takes a ton of work, I know. I love tinkering like this, and I love watching a tinkerer like you, this is definitely fun stuff!!!!!!

What are your main goals for duplication?

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John Morris
The Patriot Woodworker