Bravo's Pantorouter - By BRAVOGOLFTANGO @ LumberJocks.com ~ Woodworking Community

Bravo's PantorouterProject by BRAVOGOLFTANGO posted 26 days ago 4790 views 9 times favorited 47 comments

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The journey of a 1000 Mortise & Tenons, begins with a single Pantorouter…

Drop the pebble in the pond they said, the ripple will reach far they told me, ahh, yes but when building an ark like Noah, I must use a router I toldthem, keep your chisels and wood mallets.

Fact is I really do love handmade mortise & tenon joinery, or “Noah woodworking” as I like to call it. But while I enjoy the old-school by hand onlyapproach to a point, I’m not out to compete with Noah, fact is I like to build my projects accurate, unique and brutally strong. Yes, I over-engineereverything I’m told.

So after quite a bit of researching several venues for accomplishing M/T joinery, I couldn’t quite find what I wanted. I wanted the ability for angledM/T joinery, Leigh (great), Trend (blah, mediocre reviews), EZ-Pro (typical General Tools junk in my opinion), Jessem Slot-Mortiser (really ahandrill?), few others, but you get my point. Leigh came out on top but they nickel & dime you for the little plastic templates, etc and you’relimited to workpiece height for tenons to your bench…of course the room and step-ladder was an option and with the roof pitch..angled tenon,lol..kidding.

Finally came across the pantorouter created by Matthias Wandell, procured the plans and got started. Gathered all the hardware and thus myjourney began. In his own words (it’s just cool). My goal was to build this in a couple weeks in the evenings cradle to grave.

Bravo's Pantorouter - by BRAVOGOLFTANGO @ LumberJocks.com ~... http://lumberjocks.com/projects/78763

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Day-1 Progress

Sun-Jan 20th – all hardware procured, all wood pieces cut


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Day-2 Progress

Router assemblies completely built and ready for router assembly base setup.

NOTE: The router hold-down caps are specified to build from plywood (anti-warping, etc), at least use good plywood, better than the Lowe’s orHome Depot plywood that I used. I’m going rebuild mine from plywood, using hardwood. I noticed on one of my plywood router caps it wasspreading slightly on tightening near the screw hole on one end, so rebuilding both of them from hardwood (take about 30 mins tops).


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Fits like a glove and perfectly 1/4” pin alignment


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Haha can you say clamp overkill?


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Day-3 Progress

Pantorouter sub-assembly built this evening


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Day-4 Progress (in progress today 1/31)

DRAWER SLIDE BEARINGS

Major progress today, Lowe’s carry’s the bearing guides in the pic below, $5 ea. Returned the full extension type I original show in the pics above,they will not work due to the necessity to have a flush mounted bearing base that the bearing guides do not hit, those would have never workeddue to that. They have no play and the best part is buy a total of 4, pull the bearing rack & bearings from the 2nd set, cut the pieces per the plans(inner/outer guides), add the second rack which is 28cm (plans call for about 30cm) and it makes it even more stable.

UPDATE: If anyone does use the same guides, while it says 35 lbs, the steel framing is the same as the double-tiered and it’s about 1/16” thick,additionally the bearing cages and bearings are identical and with the full 29cm of bearing guides in this puppy now it’ll hold 100 lbs like thedouble-tiered + some.


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This is about how far the guides will extend (roughly 4”) and there was no play with this set out of the pkg, adding the new bearing guides from the2nd set make it even more stable and there is no cutting required for the bearing guides, just a tiny bit on the inner/outer guide plates (simplestuff).


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All cut & laid out per the plans, you can see the 2nd set of bearing guides (no cutting required) ready to slide in. There is just one (1) tab on eachguide you knock down with a hammer & punch to slide out the bearings to work on everything.


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Each guide required just one (1) hole along with the other 3 holes that were already in place, drilled out the holes for the 3/4” machine screws usedto fasten and used my carbide rounder to make the flush bevels.


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Finally smooth down all the worked areas for burs


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Now back to mounting the main fulcrum pieces to the pantorouter base plate and adding the main router assembly, getting closer.

Well color me purple & call me Prince, made some major progress (yesterday technically, but never went to bed, off work today – Fri 2/1).

Plunge base is completely done, everything lined up fantastic and feels smooth. Guides are all mounted on both pieces. Feeding the bearings inwas pretty fun, albeit tedious. Few pics below.


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Figured out a cool way to hold the router table @an angle to feed the bearings into the cages using my Erwins.


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On my dry-run fit of both table sections with the guides, everything feels smooth so far, adding the dust shields right now.


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Day-5 Progress

Mucho progress today,

~Modified the dust guards for the guides in the back to somewhat follow the guides without hitting them. The dimensions in the plans for theguides and their placement with the dust guards in place hit the guides, so they needed modificaiton. Maybe I’m expecting too much travel and itwas fine, has plenty of travel now I guess.


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Semi-completed


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I couldn’t find the springs at the dimensions required (4-7/8”), but found the right thickness and had to cut them, wow cutting springs can be fun,first cut a piece grenaded 30 miles an hour through the shop, after that cut I decided to suit up for warfare, fun making the springs.

A NOTE on springs: With my router in place on the assembly the springs still lift the entire assembly. Now this is explained in the plans that it’lllift the router assembly (without) the router, but it should rest down with the router in place and springs attached later on. So I may have a tiny bitoo much spring pressure, although it works fine.


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Dry fit of the template holder & workpiece tabletop. Decent fitup of the finger joints for a rookie, but I should have built my Advanced Box JointJig with the plans I procured. That’s my next project after I build a rolling stand for the pantorouter.

A NOTE on finger-joints: For the experts out there, you will notice (especially with the nicer pics) that I do not have perfectfinger joints and also I’m leaving the plans top piece off the template holder exposing the top-edge of those finger joints.

That’s intentional and the reason is I love exposed joinery and these imperfect finger-joints serve as a reminder of where Ihumbly started with expanding my woodworking knowledge through the years. Kind of a battlescar if you will.


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Doggone mortises kick my butt every time! The template base, table-top and router base guide stops all require slots. I setup a jig on my benchtopdrill-press which works perfect, there is barely a tiny bit of sanding required. Ironic the pantorouter will do these slots easily and I’m needing slotsto build the pantorouter. I oh, and he sloppy mortise piece in the pic is just scrap, actually used Lowes General Tools dowel jig experimenting,piece of junk obviously.


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Slots came out decent, little bit of filing and those are done.


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Decided to woodfill Lowe’s Birch plywood pieces (the edges) with wood filler in order to apply oak edging & their subpar plywood has gaps in mostimes. Figured it’d look pretty nice. Debating once I build it, tearing down the router assembly (just pull the pins which are several) and finesanding everything followed by hand rubbing Cherry Danish Oil and maybe the hand rubbed poly.

Update! Screw handrubbing danish oil, too impatient for that nonsense and this high-end tool throws too many router shavings everywhere, lol, Ilove that by the way. Yeah so I stained it English Chestnut and clear coated it.

Look forward to making the custom plunge handle vs the straight one and a custom (non-lathed) router assembly handle.

Finally, should be checking alignment tomorrow hopefully, maybe make a mortise template for starters.

Day-5 or 6, I lost track haha!


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I can’t decide whether or not to leave the top piece on over the finger jointed template holder, I like that the box joints/finger joints are exposed,looks cool and no further strength is needed. The piece isn’t really needed in fact. It’s just a 7/16” hardwood top-cap is all, will decide tomorrowbut I like exposed box joints.


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All that’s left is dismantle and staining, well need to check alignment first. Still have to make a template for trying it out, but that won’t take longat all, hour tops.

The table feed handle has to go, interferes with the router motion handle, I had the pieces already cut when I came across Lee’s (aka Luv2Learnhere on LJ) version whereby he changed it to a curved version, nearly hits the other handle at points in certain position, so I’m still going to builda modified extension for that, 30 min job. The full sized router handle is something else I need to finish, albeit it has the little tiny one on it nowthe plans called for.

The springs need attaching but that’s a 30 min job, I’m not using the string, have stainless 1/16” cable cut & ready. Finally I’m still debatingclamping methodology, I don’t care much for the homemade clamp, albeit works, probably going with some Bessey jig clamps.

Day-7 Progress

Mounted the router in, fits like a glove, springs are on, the stainless cable for the cam springs worked ok, but the string was easier to fine tune. I’mgoing back with the cable once I determine final sting length which is easier to tweak, but the springs work as the plans state very well to counterrouter mechanism and router weight.

I ended up using a cut 1” coarse wood screw, the string stays centered perfectly in the slot


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Nice router fitup


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Workpiece top mounted, still need to drill the fence holes in it, but the fence is done. Very nice design on the fence plans, it doubles it’s use by it’sdesign as a squred-edge pre-set fence to use on any of the four corners.


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I recommend countersinking the two 5/16” bolts on the underside of the adjustable router base slide stop section, you can use the setup on yourbenchtop that way without the carriage bolt smooth head protruding causing wobble, etc. I’m going to build a stand for my panto but want to usethis tool to build that stand with mortise & tenon joinery, so needed it wobble free for my workbench while building the stand.

!http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e50/BrettGabriel2006/Home%20Projects/Bravos%20Pantorouter/20130203144501


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Power went out @superbowl, so I had 20 mins to play a bit more. All that’s left is applying the oak-stripping on the plywood, final alignmentcheck, stain, clear-coat, apply my standard brass “Handcrafted By” plaque and build a tenon & mortise template then time for Navy Sea-Trials.

Few progress pics from Sun evening.


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The new table-sled feed handle works much better than the “stick” I called it.


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Took a big solid oak table leg from a dining room table given to me from our church, cut a 4” piece, it started out as a 3”x3” piece. Hit it with thebandsaw, squared it, octagoned it, thew it on the drill press (bluecollar lathe haha), then started with 80 grit, stepped down up to 100, 220 then320, double tapered 4” handle was the goal…accomplished!


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Looks nice!


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Compared to the original from the plans.


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. Mon 2/5 ~ PROJECT COMPLETE

Had to bring it inside for some good shots with the Nikon, shop lighting is subpar @night. My wife suggested just using my custom diy routertable when needing to make joinery with this tool, pretty good idea vs building yet another roll-around cart for it. So I slid off the router tablefence and it fits rather well. My 2-car garage is filling quick with rollable tables.

The jig clamps are just sitting on the fence, for ideas, may or may not mount them there. Thinking of a movable separate clamp block using theauto-adjust version of these I just ordered. Also, the string from the guide-bearing to the router was just to hold the assembly down from thespring tension to take the photos.


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. Bravo’s Pantorouter Build Review

Plans & Drawings – (4 of 5 starts). Pretty thorough drawings for $18, only found one (1) dimension on the cut-list which needed some clarificationfor thicknesses, but no real complaints for a humble $18. This dimension anomaly was communicated with the designer who has since made thechange in the plans.

Drawing Review

- The cut-list dimension finding I came across was on the cut-list-Hardwood Cutting Diagram. It states to use 1.5” (36mm) thick hardwood, butyou will find later that the 2mm difference affects the box-joints (finger style) fitup due to the 1:1 printable templates in the plans are designedexactly at 36mm. If it stated to “plane” your hardwood to 36mm or add 2mm to the finger joint depth if using 1.5” thick material, that would makethings easier up front, minor drawing fix which has been taken care of by the designer.

- I like to lay everything out as you can see in the pics, it’s just how my brain works I guess. I made my own Cut-List parts drawing reference whichmapped pieces to the assembly plans, this made it so much easier for me and bit closer to how we did things in the Navy & presently in theAerospace industry.

Assembly Review- The plans are pretty detailed here and overall get the job done. Alignment is the BIGGEST thing with the router mount sub-assemblies and that’smade very clear in the plans.

- I read through the entire plan pkg but didn’t follow the assembly methodology completely. For example, I used 1/4” rod vs 1/8” first off and also


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custom fit the router pieces to my particular router, which is mentioned in the instructions albeit the 1:1 templates are at best a (get it closeapproach).

- During assembly of these critical alignment sub-assemblies, I used either 1/4”-20 nuts/bolts to align said assemblies or the 1/4” rod and they areperfectly aligned. The instructions will get you there to alignment, but I used a simpler equally accurate method.

- The fence system for this tool and the plans for it were well thought out and it’s a multi-use capability tool actually.

Pantorouter Use Review

I’m going through my learning-curve with the templates at the moment, but it seems to be a small curve, it’s new is all.

My first stab with doing 3/4” stock with a through-tenon (love these)


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First stab with a blind M&T, the cuts are incredibly clean and not too tight to prevent a glue surface, yet it still makes the nice little pucker-popsound (nominal fit)


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Almost midnight Thur 2/7 & I have a fully functional 1” mortise & tenon template that works fantastic. Thanks to Mathias & Luv2learn (Lee) hereon LJ for the tips.


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My first Pantorouter quick project. Sea-Trials went well for this little picture frame. Once you setup your templates and mark them it’s super fast.

I took the 1” M/T template I made last night and threw it on the panto, just wanted to see how close it’d be without micro measuring (which youdo initially to build templates). Very satisfied with the results.

It’s western red cedar scraps, handrubbed with cherry Danish oil. Nothing fancy, but a cool test run.


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The possibilities are near limitless with the panto. What’s really cool is I now have a super fast and simple way to make slotting vs the drill presssystem I used to build this rig.

-- "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"

47 comments so far

Bill_N163 posts in 361 days

#1 posted 26 days ago

I wish I had room for one of theseThey look like they do a great job

-- I have the Saw Dust Fever


62 of 67 2/25/2013 2:16 PM

BRAVOGOLFTANGO223 posts in 86 days


Oh man I barely have room in my 2-car garage, but it’s a dedicated woodworking shop, our trucks are outsidevehicles now haha.


Ben Simms172 posts in 374 days


I’m jealous, this is awesome!

-- I played with Legos as a kid and I never had the part I thought I needed, so I learned to improvise. Now I'm anengineer with a woodworking hobby.

Julian227 posts in 773 days


Looking forward to see how this turns out. I would build several of Matthias’ inventions but my garage is already fulland my wife wants to park her car inside.

-- Julian

Zinderin90 posts in 215 days


What do you think it cost you total (minus the router)?



Ben – don’t be jealous, it’s just a guy-toy, you know the drill lol…

Julian – I hear you on the garage thing, we gave up on the garage parking once we sold our Jeeps. She had a4-dr JK Wrangler RUBICON and I had a 2-dr JK RUBICON I built myself for rock-crawling that cleared thegarage top by 3/8” Haha…37” BOGGERS take up some room. She was scared of rock-crawling anyway, I lovedit, we got tired of fixing mine, ditched them both and her Yukon and my crewcab do NOT fit in the garageanyway unless it was empty all the way up to the sheetrock…screw that! :). On the bright side ~ woodworkingis cheaper than JEEPING ~, well wait…no no..I’m incorrect..those fancy wood planes for $8,000 I foundyesterday indeed compete with JEEP upgrade costs.

Zinder – I’m roughly $100 – $120 in hardware parts & lumber. I bought a Porter Cable 9690LR Fixed Base1-3/4hp router ($129) from Lowes, it’s body dia measured 3.5” (89mm) which is exactly what the drawingscalled for.


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RCT72 posts in 1834 days


I’m looking forward to see how this turns out as well. I have had the drawings for some time been waiting forinsperation.Thanks

-- "Ya but what does he know anyhow?"



RCT – it’s a fun project that’s for sure. It’s intimidating looking at first, but I’ve built other complex things, this is onup there mind you, but it’s no more complicated, albeit more complex than the wooden-router-lift I built, just a tonmore parts!




I forgot Mathias loves to use metricI don’t want to convert and am lacking metric measures


luv2learn593 posts in 386 days


You are going to like this tool. How do I know? I built one. Be prepared to figure out some kind of chip and dustcollection. I am still working on that part myself.


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-- "If the women don't find you handsome, at least they ought to find you handy" Red Green



Bill kind of thought the same at first, $6 android ap Measure Master pro from Calculated Industries made theconversion simple really, but I understand what you’re saying.

Luv2learn, thanks for sharing that bit of intel, inspiring to get me back in the shop, taking a break and building thehandle right now, thinking of changing it from straight though to curvatured like someone else who built it (forgetwho).

Still debating whether to build the clamps, just not sure I’m crazy about them, was considering some auto-adjustingjig clamps. I first thought all the 3/8” holes were bench dog type holes for the clamp plans, but see it’s not now.




Thanks for the info I will check it out


luv2learn593 posts in 386 days


Hey Brett the curved handle modification was me. After I had it all together and put it though its first trial run Ididn’t like how close the two handles were.


65 of 67 2/25/2013 2:16 PM

-- "If the women don't find you handsome, at least they ought to find you handy" Red Green



Ahh ok thank you sir, well I have some scrap oak dining table legs scrap I’m considering building a two-piece curvedhandle out of, figured I’d get it all assembled first though then go back, didn’t care for the closeness of the handleseither. Nor do I care for the tiny little 1” dowel handle that’s being changed out to something oak and maybe 3-1/2”long.


trasner55 posts in 990 days


With that device, who needs a CNC machine. This is probably the best review I have read of one of Mr. Wandel’splans. The guy is extraordinary, albeit probably a little eccentric. I mean, who builds a wooden bandsaw?? Hereminds me of a woodworking version of Dr. Emmett Brown (Back to the Future). I love his website. Please sendsome picture of some of your creations with your pantorouter.

-- Todd

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Bravo's Pantorouter - By BRAVOGOLFTANGO @ LumberJocks.com ~ Woodworking Community

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