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Message Subject: Router Table Duplicator

GEE13

Posted 3/4/2014 7:54 PM (#696271)
Subject: Router Table Duplicator

Posts: 3

First I want say what an awesome site this is. I am afraid I am wearing out the search button though , a ton of valuable info here. To all the long time builders/posters - Thank You!

Last year was my first year musky fishing and now I can’t stop. It had been several years since I built any lures and it has always been saltwater stuff. I wanted to get some more musky lures in the box and figured I would start with some gliders. If you do a Google search for musky gliders it does not take long to see how valuable this site is.

I would like to pass along a system I use for cutting wood plugs on a router table. I found an article in the December 2002 Workbench magazine that showed how to cut spindles with a router table. I made a set up similar to this and have been very pleased with how I am able to reproduce the same shape of any pattern that I cut into a template. I hope the photos come thru on this post because it would be useless without it.

The plugs I am cutting here are pikies but any cylinder shape will work. The cuts are not as fast as you would get with a lathe set-up but the cost of the set-up compared to a lathe/duplicator works for me.

The thing in the center of photo 1 is what I call the sled. The square wood stock is bolted inside it with short lag bolts. You hold the hockey stick handle in the middle and one of the bolts with the nut driver. The sled goes on the router table and the stock is cut with a straight bit in the router. The piece of white masonite on the top of the sled is the pattern. You cut what you want the plug to look like into the pattern, secure it to the sled and that is what will be cut into the stock.

On top of the router table you need to build a device that holds a pin in place that the pattern will ride against. This pin (a cut off piece of 3/8 bolt) is the same diameter as the router bit. With the pin clamped in place you are able to run the stock into the router bit until you reach the pattern. You really want to go slow while doing this, actually you have to because the router wants to take a big bite if you try to feed it too much. Take small cuts with each pass and work your way into the stock. You need to turn the stock after each cut so as to get the shape around the plug.

After the plug is cut completely around it needs to be sanded. When I first started I used a nut driver in the cordless drill to spin to block but since then I built a little machine with an old drill as the motor. You have to be careful not to sand too much. I use calipers to check myself to get the diameter close to exact. As you see in the first photo I use different length sleds for different length plugs to reduce the waste in the stock I cut.
This winter has been brutal I now have a huge pile of blanks with some new prototypes mixed in, can’t wait to try em out.
Gee