# My home made router milling machine



## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

I have been reading the forum for a while now seeing what everyone is building, It just amazes me. Anyway I thought I would share with you my creation I have been working of for a couple years. This is the third one I built, improving it each time and I am already planing the next one. 

It is basically a milling router. I have 20" of forward and reverse, 30" of lateral movement and and 10" of up and down movement, All controlled by hand cranks. Because a router can cut pretty fast the forward and lateral cranks will move the table 1.25" with one turn. The up and down movement is slower though.

It also has a rotating table attachment and the overarm head can rotate to angle the router.

It is a ball to use and the things you can do with it are just incredible. I am just getting to the point where I am getting a real feel for what it can do.

There are pictures included of a couple clocks I recently milled out of some slabs of black walnut I had. It was effortless and quick. The one clock that is has the block on the right was milled from one piece there is nothing cut or glued on. I have also included a picture of a piece of 4x4 that I was just messing around with to see some of the possibilities.


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## TwoSkies57 (Feb 23, 2009)

Welcome to the community Mark.... glad to have ya join...

You obviously got some skills going on there!!! Built it, then use it....you have to spend sleepless nights just thinking up the possibilities. very cool stuff!!!

can't wait to read more...


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## Jack Wilson (Mar 14, 2010)

Hello Mark, VERY cool! Keep the posts with photos coming, I am interested in seeing what else you create.


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## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

Welcome to the forum Mark, interesting mill and amazing results from it. My guess is that a great deal of left and right hand coordination in required to operate the X Y table, quite apart from the table height!


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Twoskies57, Yes I did spend a lot of sleepless nights figuring this thing out and am still loose a wink or two over it.

harrysin, At first it was a little confusing to operate the cranks and at times made a few oops turning them the wrong way. But they are set up to turn in the direction you think would move the table.

Jack,
It works really great for surface planning odd shapes or end grains that you cant run through a planner.

Here are a few other things I created with it.
The first is a simple box that was milled out of a piece of cut off drift wood. 
The second and third are a couple cedar slabs someone sent me to make a clock and a picture frame for their log cabin. 
The one is a piece of oak milled into a picture frame.
And the last piece is just a piece of tree root surface milled as an experiment.


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## GoonMan (Mar 22, 2005)

Wow that is some beautiful work.


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## Dr.Zook (Sep 10, 2004)

Excellent work Mark. Harry is right. It takes some good hand/eye cordination, especially with no numbers or indexing marks.


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## Santé (Jan 14, 2010)

Hi,
Your machine is "formidable" and what you do with is also.
Have you plan of this machine? 
If I see just, it is making all in wood ?
I am very interrested by this machine.
Félicitation !


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## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

Mark Sternberg said:


> Twoskies57, Yes I did spend a lot of sleepless nights figuring this thing out and am still loose a wink or two over it.
> 
> harrysin, At first it was a little confusing to operate the cranks and at times made a few oops turning them the wrong way. But they are set up to turn in the direction you think would move the table.
> 
> ...


You've actually given me an idea Mark, I have a drill press converted to a mill/drill, with X Y table and micro down feed. I'm thinking that if I make a short housing for my Aluminium ended Makita trim router with a #2MT spindle that could go into the quill in place of the chuck, then, providing that the weight of the router allows it to stay put, I could see how much my coordination has suffered in the last 25 years since I made this four way tool post with a one piece tapered ball handle made using the top and cross slides. It's definitely on my "to do" list


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi Mark

Great looking Pin router and some very nice work also.. 


========


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## jetpilot (Jul 7, 2010)

hello Mark: Welcome to RF. Great piece of equipment, and very tallented ONE of a kind 
artifacts.


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## TanOak (May 31, 2010)

Fantastic work Mark, thanks for sharing! 
I'd love to know more details on the table movement. Would mind telling what kind of bearings and tubing you used? 
Thanks,
Jim


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## alexthehun (Jul 9, 2008)

Great machine!
Have you considered that you are only one step away from doing this fully automated?
Just add stepper drive to replace the crank handles and control via computer. No need to worry about co-ordination issues any more!


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Thanks for the thumbs up everyone. 
To answer some of your posts and questions,
Dave,
It is really not that hard to use. I basically draw reference marks on my work and cut to the lines. If you ever used an etch a sketch before it kind of the same thing.

Sante,
Yes, it is mostly wood, Plywood frame with MDF work surfaces. The slide rails are 1 1/4" tubing with 1" thick nylon bushings I made. This works but is not the ultimate setup yet for me.

Harrysin,
I thought I might get some people thinking about how to make one. I like your idea and I think you will have fun with it until you find it's limitations then you will be ready to build one from scratch.
To be honest that's how my idea started, I had a much smaller version of a cross slide table that I experimented with. 
Like I mentioned before a router can cut fast and you will get tired trying to turn the cranks on a cross slide table.
In fact the first one I made I used threaded rod to move the tables and one turn would only give me an inch of movement, I really worked up a sweat trying to move the table as fast as the router could cut on bigger projects. 
I racked my brain trying to come up with a faster movement and although it seems unconventional I came up with something that works. It's hard to explain so I will try to get you a picture of it tomorrow.

If anyone is interested I will make a short video of it in action tomorrow.


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

alexthehun,
I understand what you are saying but the main reason I made it this way was so I could use my skills and not rely on a computer. Don't get me wrong I believe a CNC machine is the ultimate woodworking machine but this has a few capabilities a CNC couldn't perform.


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## Gene Howe (Jul 10, 2007)

I vote for a video!!
Love to see it working.


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## Soapdish (Jan 18, 2010)

Yes I video would be awesome. A couple of questions. What is motor and pulley that is mounted up in the ceiling to the left of your machine? And is the cord leaving the router the power cord? I only ask because a friend looking over my shoulder here wanted to know if it was an air driven router?? Great setup up. I love it, i bet its a blast to use.


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Soapdish,
The motor with the pulley is an exhaust fan for pulling airborn dust from my shop and the router is an electric one (craftsman)


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## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

A video would be appreciated.


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

I posted some videos on youtube. They are not great but you will get the point. There are a total of 9 videos. I basically took a piece of black walnut and turned it into a bowl with little feet on the bottom. I am not trying to compete with a lathe but this is just a possibility to show an example. I had trouble with my battery so some of it is fast forwarded.
Any way go to search and put in (wood router mill carving video 1) then go to wood router mill carving video 2 and so on until you see all 9. They may not be all loaded yet it takes a while.


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## TwoSkies57 (Feb 23, 2009)

1 is loaded Mark....

you musta been one holy terror with an etch-a-sketch back in the day....*S*


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Yes I was...LOL ..Anyway I having trouble getting the other ones loaded. It may take a while.


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

OK I finally got a chance to load some video but I ended up using photobucket instead of youtube. Anyway I can build just about anything but I am video challenged. They are a little boring and they jump forward now and then because I didn't know that my battery was going dead and because I had a fan running it is hard to hear me. 

The first video I mounted a rough cut round piece of black walnut to my rotating table with hot glue. I hot glue a piece of 1/4" luan to the table then hot glue my piece to the luan. Then when I am done I just pry it off and the veneer from the luan peels off where the glue is. Then I just use a sharp knife or chisel to cut the glue off my piece and my table.

To see them go to Pictures by routermill - Photobucket


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## Marco (Feb 21, 2009)

Hi Mark........ I can tell you are having a blast with your machine. Curious to the size and length of the bits you were using and where you got them from.

I ran something similar to it 33 years ago. It was used to make printing plates for greeting cards. The material being cut was magnesium that had been etched with acid leaving the image(s) to be printed slightly higher than the rest. With a sharp bit we would go in and shave the material not to be printed and clean it up with a chisel/engraver......... I believe on that machine that the height was partilally controlled by foot and the X and Y were by a handle on the front and a handle on the left........ Brass was also used for printing plates and the high detail work was all done by hand with a chisle/engraver


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Marco,
The long straight bit I have on it is a 1/2" by 2.5 inches. I believe I got that one at Lowes it was a Bosch bit if I remember right. I do have a 3" one too and got it on ebay but I don't like it because it vibrates too much. It was cheap I guess there is a reason for it.


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## gemnw (Aug 1, 2010)

Mark great work and fantastic potential!
Did you start out as a kid drawing Etch a Sketch? I could see where it would help.


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Ted,
Thank you. I think of things every day that I want to try with it. 
I did put a lot of work into it and it's still not perfect. It's biggest downfall is, it is mostly made of wood and although my moving parts are metal and nylon they are connected to wood and when it is humid things swell up just enough to make things inconsistent from one day to the next causing slight movement problems on my table. So this winter I am gathering everything together to make the real one out of steel.

As far as getting used to using it, it just takes some practice. You get a few opps I went the wrong way with the turn of the handle when you first start. But it's like driving, or running a back hoe, once you do it enough it's like second nature.


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## radios (Sep 30, 2009)

*Danger*



harrysin said:


> You've actually given me an idea Mark, I have a drill press converted to a mill/drill, with X Y table and micro down feed. I'm thinking that if I make a short housing for my Aluminium ended Makita trim router with a #2MT spindle that could go into the quill in place of the chuck, then, providing that the weight of the router allows it to stay put, I could see how much my coordination has suffered in the last 25 years since I made this four way tool post with a one piece tapered ball handle made using the top and cross slides. It's definitely on my "to do" list


 yipes! that would be extremely dangerous, the router WILL pull the spindle out of the quill and you'll have a router flying around!. you could dismount the drill head from the tube, then make a SAFE head to mount the router to, it's the only safe way to do that.


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## Dorisz11 (Aug 31, 2010)

mark sternberg said:


> i have been reading the forum for a while now seeing what everyone is building, it just amazes me. Anyway i thought i would share with you my creation i have been working of for a couple years. This is the third one i built, improving it each time and i am already planing the next one.
> 
> It is basically a milling router. I have 20" of forward and reverse, 30" of lateral movement and and 10" of up and down movement, all controlled by hand cranks. Because a router can cut pretty fast the forward and lateral cranks will move the table 1.25" with one turn. The up and down movement is slower though.
> 
> ...


nice


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## TrimbleEpic (Jun 29, 2010)

This is easily one of the coolest things I've ever @#$%ing seen in my life 

What is the table movement actually made of? I noticed the hand-wheels are parallel to the table movement instead of perpendicular, so is it a rack-and-pinion type of thing instead of a screw/worm thing?

Is it precise enough to do planing and jointing too?


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

The table movement is just a rod with light gauge rope wrapped around it and kept tight with a heavy spring. I have since changed it to a light cable.

For the vertical movement I used threaded rod to move the router arm up and down and to accommodate the right angle from the turning rod to the threaded rod I used a simple 3/8" drive spring type flex extension. 

I included a couple of pictures of construction of one of the other mills I built before the one you see in the earlier post, this should give you an idea of how I did it.

I surface plane with it all the time for small projects and it works great on end grain pieces.


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## TrimbleEpic (Jun 29, 2010)

Wow, I would have never thought to use something so simple as rope to drive the table... I would be afraid of slippage... though, as I sit here thinking about it, I can't imagine why slippage would be that big of a deal, since you're working to your pencil marks, and not counting on the mill to hold a measurement.

I also would imagine you could very easily mill out a tabletop with a frame underside from all one piece of wood for extra strength, the way Apple computer makes their Macbook cases from all one piece of aluminum. Nice


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## newwoodworker (Mar 27, 2009)

that is amazing! my hats off to you on that engineering feat! 

The one thing that did come to mind while watching would be to automate the turning of the mounting disc to cut down on having to turn the round table by hand and then adjust the x,y if the spinning of it was automated with just a simple pulley on a small motor you could focus on the movements of the table with some way to disengage it while doing straight cuts left and right,forward and back but while in the shaping stage have it spinning on its own.
My mind and fingers dont get along to often and what im seeing in my head has a hard time transferring over to text hope it makes sense what im saying lol


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

As far as slippage goes. With it wrapped around 4 times and kept tight with spring tension it doesn't slip at all. I did have trouble with the rope stretching until I switched to a 1/16" cable.

As far as the turning of the table I have been thinking about automating it but I have a few issues to contend with. I would have to have variable speed on it and it would have to have reverse on it so that I can cut on proper side of the bit . 
For instance if I am cutting on the right side of the bit it works best if rotate the table clockwise and if I am cutting on the left side of the bit I turn it counterclockwise for best results.

Here are some other clocks I just cut with it.

The first is a piece of tree, over 150 years old that I dried out ( 4 years) That was part of a farmers fence row.
Second is an old maple cutting block.
The last one is an old chunk of black walnut. It is a slice from a tree so the face is end grain.


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## westend (Mar 31, 2009)

Very cool machine and the clocks are first rate. The carraige mechanism must have taken more than a few nights of pondering to work that well.Congrats!


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Lance,
Thank you for the compliment. And yes there was many a sleepless night along with trial and error, about 2 years on and off.


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## hal37880 (Sep 27, 2010)

*Router Mill*

Is your x-y table strong enough to support a lathe? Or could it be removed to put a small lathe on the bed? It sure would be easy to index a spindle or bowl for fluting? Or even cutting the corners off square stock?

Great project, I'm impressed.
Hal


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## Claymation (Feb 26, 2010)

Looks like a woodworker's Etch-a-sketch! How do you control making a curve?


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## Noob (Apr 18, 2009)

Very impressive and great ingenuity. Not only are you making great projects, you made the machine that made those projects.


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## Claymation (Feb 26, 2010)

would like to hear more about how you control the making of an arc... freehand?


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## DKane (Nov 1, 2010)

Mark,
Great engineering, great craftsmanship.
Don


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Yes, I use it quite often for planing small or odd pieces that can't be sent through a planer. It works good for mortising too once you get the hang of using the cranks and following lines. The movement is just simple cable and pulleys.


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## malb (Sep 15, 2008)

harrysin said:


> You've actually given me an idea Mark, I have a drill press converted to a mill/drill, with X Y table and micro down feed. I'm thinking that if I make a short housing for my Aluminium ended Makita trim router with a #2MT spindle that could go into the quill in place of the chuck, then, providing that the weight of the router allows it to stay put, I could see how much my coordination has suffered in the last 25 years since I made this four way tool post with a one piece tapered ball handle made using the top and cross slides. It's definitely on my "to do" list


Sorry for drifting the thread a bit in Harry's way, but from his pics, the better way to tweek his setup to mount a trimmer might be to rerig the lower plate on the quill collar so he could screw a mounting plate into it, rather than relying on the quill taper to grip a vibrating router adaptor.


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## giman (Nov 14, 2010)

This is an incredible machine!! Something to shoot for.
Bill


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## gcraso (Jan 20, 2011)

*how did you do it?*

Mark,

did you come up with the design for your router milling machine on your own or did you follow some plans?


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

It was my own design. I built it through trial and error. The one seen is the 3rd one I built. I am currently building an improved one now.


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## AxlMyk (Jun 13, 2006)

A rotary table on it would open up a bunch of possibilities.
Nice job.


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## TWheels (May 26, 2006)

Mark, I had completely missed this thread. You have a very ingenious device and the work you have done with it is amazing! I am going to go look for the videos.


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## Mark Sternberg (Jan 16, 2010)

Thanks Tom,
Don't get to excited about the video's I am not that good at making them. But you can see a little project I made with it.


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## giman (Nov 14, 2010)

*Wonderful machine!*

This is quite a work of art and love. You must have some experience as a machinist!
The pices you made from the tree stumps are really fantastic.
Thanks so much for your sharing and teaching
BillinBonita:yes4:


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