Pantograph With Dremel

In July of 2014 MakeICT had the good fortune to hold an instructables build night workshop with Dremel tools. The Dremel company sent us several very nice high speed rotary tools. We decided to experiment with one and create a duplicating mechanism which is sometimes called a panthograph. Several short sticks are screwed together in a lattice formation and the Dremel tool is mounted at on of the center points of the lattice matrix. The geometry of this works out such that every movement of the probe at one end is duplicated at one half scale by the cutting tool. In order to mount the Dremel we unscrewed the collar around the spindle and screwed on one of the collar fittings from the gauge foot (part of the kit). Then we drilled a 1 inch hole in the wood stick and ran a 1/4-20 screw into it to hold the collar and the Dremel in place.

Micheal is demonstrating here how to move the probe around an object while the Dremel is carving wood.

As you can see here the machine carved a shape that somewhat resembles the wrench that we traced with the probe. We were using a 1/8 inch ball end mill bit in the Dremel so the detail of the pattern was not as fine as if we had a fine point bit. And it's important not to have too much slop in the pivoting joints. We'll play with it some more and see if we can duplicate some other things.