What can I use a Pantograph for?

[Jo]

Ok Guys:

Many years ago I purchased this little pantograph engraver:



She has been used to make a couple of engraved name plates for my loco boxes but the quality was not up to much, I have latter found that someone had "cocked up" (engineering term) the sharpening of the cutting bits. Lets say she is great for doing dog tags.....

This is my latest pantograph, for which I paid the princely sum of ?50 and they even helped me put her in my car  :





Her ability to make "dog tags" is much improved over my previous machine. so the question now is what else can I use a pantograph for? My initial thoughts are:

1, I can use her to make "pretty swirly patterns" to decorate my engines using a spirograph set?
2, I have heard rumours of someone using these to cross out wheels. It this really practical?
3, Is there any reason why I should not use her to provide folding lines for making up boxes?

And then there is the question of bits, this pantograph is a Taylor Hobson model A, and she takes specialist little taper bits. I have a load of dental burrs.......Anyone got any good ideas as to how I may be able to fit these and is it then practical to use her as a free hand mill? I seem to remember an old friend using these to do things with his O gauge models but i cannot remember what

Jo

[steamer]

Hi Jo,

My Dad had a sign business and used a Gorton pantograph to make plexiglass signs.  The cutters he used were tapered affairs which basically looked like D-bits, but had some relief put into them with a Gorton 265 cutter grinder....if you didn't do that you would melt the plastic.
He used them to make engraved signs and to cut larger letters out of the mother stock to be glued to a backer piece.
I don't know how well dental bits would work, but I suppose if the Depth of cut were shallow enough...they might.

I could see yours being used to cut out letters or repeatitive small parts from a larger easier to make master ......just a thought.

Dave

[Bogstandard]

Jo,

If it is of any help, I have just ordered and received some proper carbide engraving bits from here. The prices are amazing and so is the quality.

http://richontools.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=81

I'm sure that a person of your ability could make a 1/8" holder to allow you to use them.
These are the 60 deg. ones.






John
 

[steamer]

That's what I remember John.   The ones my Dad used were more like 15 degree included...long dart like.

Dave

[Bogstandard]

I bought those as well Dave.

Every angle with a #2 sized tip, for engraving graduation lines around handwheels etc.

I've still got to make the plug in high speed head for my mill though, so that I can use them.

John

[Jo]

What you are describing I recognise as standard engraver bits, I can pickup original bits for about ?4 each.  But I have this huge heap of dental burrs.... is it worth the effort of making up a holder for the pantograph or are they likely to go blunt too quickly?

What I am hoping is that we might have someone on the forum who can point me towards some of the more advanced (obscure?) uses I could put the pantograph to. For example I was nattering to one of our project managers and he mentioned as an apprentice he remembered knocking up a "D bit" for a pantograph, sticking a roller around the pointer and then following around the outside of wooden guides to make raised areas to make up nameplates.

Jo

[Bogstandard]

Jo,

Having had a retired dentist as an old friend, I too had thousands of both new and used dental burrs from a few years ago.

I found them OK in softer materials like plastic and wood, but they soon clogged up, especially in light alloys (no mouthwash available on my mill) and on steel the went dull almost instantly. They may have got harder over the years.

I have used some of the longer diamond ones in my Dremel lookalike for shaping the ends of HSS profile cutters though, and they did a good job.

John

[Bluechip]

What to do with one ??

This sort of thing?

http://crystalreceiver.co.uk/engraved.htm

Dave BC

[Jo]

Yeap, standard flat plate engraving from various stencils/script sets is what they are designed for, but it is the more obscure stuff like someone somewhere mentioned being able to do 3D engraving on a pantograph.

Jo

[dsquire]

Jo

Looks like a very interesting machine. I imagine with the right reasonably priced bits there could be many uses including dog tags.

Cheers 

Don

[Raggle]

Seems to me that a pantograph engraver is the flat or 2D version of ornamental turning. In ornamental lathes the spindle is not driven, except by hand, and may pass over a cam or other device which alters the axial and/or radial position of the spindle. A cutter mounted in a slide rest (also hand operated) does the actual work.

(If anyone can work out what I'm getting at in that paragraph and can write it better, please do  )

In the 2D version the cutter is again the only powered motion and as far as I remember one of my mates engraving trophies would engage the cut by pressing the spindle down to the work and disengaged for no cut. The master letters were nylon I think and the stylus had a small radius to prevent wear to the letters. Reduction ratios were as much a 1:16 (or maybe I'm dreaming there), all the bars had marks for the appropriate reduction.

I can imagine (and ONLY imagine) some sort of highly configurable control head with your spirograph pieces, or better still a collection of gears, racks, toothed belts etc. The output from this Heath-Robinson affair would replace the stylus and nylon copy and would need to be driven, maybe)
This is the mirror equivalent to Holtzapffel's geometric chuck, a work of sheer elegance in itself.

Coin and medallion work was performed on such machines. A plaster master was made several times size and a female copy of it suitably reduced in steel or maybe CI was used in the press.

So it's an ornamental milling machine !!

Probably can't anything a CNC can't do 20 times faster and unattended, but you just had to ask, didn't you?

Ray

[Bogstandard]

Jo, a long time ago, when I used to work for a decorative ribbon manufacturer, there was one employee who used to make all the rotary cutting dies using a similar sized pantograph.

He used a dividing head and tailstock to hold the 4" diameter tube with 1/2" thick walls and he deep engraved them, maybe 3/32" deep, using a large pattern to follow on the back. Eventually they were hardened and used for heat cutting through cellulose based materials, leaving a nice decorative edge on the ribbons.

I would class that as a sort of 3D engraving.

John

[arnoldb]

Jo, as an electronics engineering apprentice I spent many hours on a pantograph engraving panel labeling tags and so on. 
If I recall, that pantograph would engrave shallower or deeper according to the height of the tracing arm.  If yours works the same, I see no reason why it can't be used as a very basic 3D engraver - for example cutting out bits from plate to make a "trussed" look for a beam for an engine or even forming spokes on locomotive wheels and such.

I don't think it's a requirement to have a pre-formed pattern either; nothing will prevent you from just printing out an image on a bit of paper, and running the tracing arm over the black areas or lines to engrave the same on the workpiece.  As the pantograph usually reduces the original pattern quite a bit depending on your setting, it would minimize any small errors you make while tracing the original.

With modern photo editing software, you could even convert an image to grey-scale and using the software to set black/white contrast levels make a couple of separate pictures to trace to form a 3D image...

Operating it this way will take a bit of time and patience, but then, I'm sure you've at least got the necessary patience 

I've been thinking of building a pantograph for myself - to engrave my own engines and tooling.  And to engrave numbers on hand wheels etc.  Engraving on the circumference of handwheels would just require a semi-circular section with it's radius scaled up accordingly to trace off - but numbers can just be stuck to it - or even free-handed much neater than trying to directly engrave on the workpiece...

Kind regards, Arnold

[DaveH]

This is a home made pantograph to produce a small medallion.

http://www.metalworkingfun.com/showthread.php?tid=677&pid=8429#pid8429

Warning: if you don't like guns don't go and look

 
DaveH

[Jo]

Dave,

That's just what I was thinking of, all I need is the idiot's guide to how to do it
---------
I had a bit of progress last night on the pantograph: I got around to measuring the thread on the cutter spindle nose and it seems to be a 1/2" by 32 thread, 1/4" long. I also have a small Proxxon pillar drill that came with a nice small collet chuck (3/8" by 24 thread) and a set of collets that I have never used as I immediately fitted a Rohm chuck to her. So my thoughts are to make an adapter for the pantograph nose to allow me to fit the collet chuck. One of the collets fits my dental burrs a treat and another will fit the 1/8" tool bits Bogs mentioned

Jo