# Pantorouter



## hawkeye10 (Jul 28, 2015)

Matthias Wandel on You Tube is a very remarkable wood worker and very smart. He made this pantorouter a while back and it sure does a lot of things and does them well, at least when he is showing what it does. I am surprised a company has not made one for the public. I guess it would cost a lot but every thing cost a lot.


----------



## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

I believe he is educated as a mechanical engineer. Don't know if he has a day job, but he is a genius at designing and making tools. I do know he sells plans. I believe there is a metal pantorouter made now, Hong Kong maybe, quite similar to his. I recall a video where the builder sent him one and he compared the two. I do not need a pantorouter, but if I did, I would rather get the plans from him and make one.


----------



## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

Fastnating ,that guy is a genius in tool design, I have his router pantograph,and love it.
Herb


----------



## hawkeye10 (Jul 28, 2015)

Herb Stoops said:


> Fastnating ,that guy is a genius in tool design, I have his router pantograph,and love it.
> Herb


Herb I sure didn't know you had one. I bet you do love it. I think it so neat and to me it look very useful.


----------



## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

hawkeye10 said:


> Herb I sure didn't know you had one. I bet you do love it. I think it so neat and to me it look very useful.


Not this one Don, the panto-graph he designed a few years ago. 
https://woodgears.ca/pantograph/
Herb


----------



## Hutzul (Oct 4, 2012)

I made his pantorouter about 4 years ago, from his plans. ( I've made his noisy marble machine too, kids love it, also adults). 

A guy from India started making Matt's pantorouter in steel, for sale worldwide.

I am a big fan of Matt, and look forward to his new projects. 

Links here for the wood and steel machines:

Pantorouter made from steel

Reader built pantorouter machines

Hope I aint broke mods rules with links.


----------



## hawkeye10 (Jul 28, 2015)

Hutzul said:


> I made his pantorouter about 4 years ago, from his plans. ( I've made his noisy marble machine too, kids love it, also adults).
> 
> A guy from India started making Matt's pantorouter in steel, for sale worldwide.
> 
> ...


That steel pantorouter is impressive but boy it cost a lot of money. Still I can see some wood workers buying it.


----------



## Quillman (Aug 16, 2010)

Sour grapes? No, just seeking truth.
I'm certainly impressed with the simplicity and aplomb of the video, very well presented. 
And I'm impressed with accuracy I'm seeing.
What I don't see is registration. The centeredness of the mortise and tenons to the stock is not addressed. The fit looks superb but are the excavations on center (with respect to the stock section)?


----------



## waynecochran (Aug 2, 2011)

The commercial version is make mostly with extruded aluminum. The web site is hybridpantorouter.com. Yes. it is pricey but if you were to use it alot it might be worth it.


----------



## waynecochran (Aug 2, 2011)

Quillman, the alignment is done at the template and the table has a center mark.


----------



## CharleyL (Feb 28, 2009)

I too follow his projects and enjoy watching his videos. 

A pantorouter looks like a lot of fun to build and use. Of course, you can buy several similar tools ready made too. The JDS Multi-Router is one of the best that I know of and it's all metal.

But for mortise and tenon work I have a Leigh FMT, now called the FMT Pro jig. Multiple M&T joints are easy to set up for and make using the FMT, and the FMT has an adjustment that lets you get the exact tightness of fit that you want between the mortise and it's tenon, a feature that is missing from every other M&T cutting tool that I know of. Over my years of woodworking I have made mortises and tenons about every way from drilling and chopping out the mortises and cutting the mating tenons on the table saw, to using a square chisel mortising machine or adapter on my drill press, and then on to router mortising and floating tenons made with my planer and table saw, then on to the Trend M&T jig and several other similar router jigs presently available, as well as several shop built jigs. None ever made mortise and matching tenons as easily, and repeatably for me as the FMT has. 

Yes it's expensive, but worth every penny in my opinion. When I bought it I was about to start a job with over 1600 M&T joints, and I did not want to do any more "floating tenon joints". The FMT paid for itself with that one job. It's accuracy is better than anything else that I have used, and the adjustment feature that lets you get a perfect fit between the mortise and the tenon that is something that I've never seen in any other M%T jig. 

When watching a demo of a JDS multi-router I discovered that the person demonstrating the tool had wrapped Scotch Tape around the follower bearing in order to "fine tune" the fit of the mortise to the tenon, but this forces a fit based on the increments of the thickness of multiple layers of Scotch Tape with no "in between" (less than one layer thickness) adjustment capability. With the FMT jig I can turn the adjustment to increase the width of the mortise and thin the mating tenon by as little as .001" or .002" or more if I should want to, and it's repeatable. Every mortise and mating tenon turn out with the exact same fit after making this adjustment. I can even cut all of the mortises of that size in the job and then go back and cut all of the mating tenons, and they will all fit together the same way and are interchangeable. It's no longer necessary for me to fine tune each joint for proper fit.

Charley


----------



## RÖENTGEEP (Feb 18, 2014)

I made the wood pantorouter from his plans with some mods and works very well and if you made if from wood its no expensive at all, just time consuming. Im happy with it. :wink:

BTW the metal PR is nice but very expensive.


----------



## Thelt (Feb 3, 2009)

Herb Stoops said:


> Fastnating ,that guy is a genius in tool design, I have his router pantograph,and love it.
> Herb


How difficult was it to cut out and build? I've watch the same videos of Matthias and his Pantograph. I want to build it but I'm not sure I can handle that much yet.


----------



## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

Thelt said:


> How difficult was it to cut out and build? I've watch the same videos of Matthias and his Pantograph. I want to build it but I'm not sure I can handle that much yet.


Frank, I didn't build mine, my cousin Paul was building one for himself and I asked him to cut out one for me while he was at it and I would assemble it. He went ahead and assembled both and brought it over and gave it to me.
However, here is a PDF of a joint demonstration we gave at our woodworking club last October , he did the "build" part, I did the demo of the pantograph.

This is our Newsletter, so you will find it about half way down. 
http://nwwoodworkers.org/newsletters/October 2016 Newsletter.pdf

Hope this answers your question.

Herb


----------



## hawkeye10 (Jul 28, 2015)

RÖENTGEEP said:


> I made the wood pantorouter from his plans with some mods and works very well and if you made if from wood its no expensive at all, just time consuming. Im happy with it. :wink:
> 
> BTW the metal PR is nice but very expensive.


Joseph if you mess a part up just start over. That is how we all learn.


----------



## RÖENTGEEP (Feb 18, 2014)

hawkeye10 said:


> Joseph if you mess a part up just start over. That is how we all learn.


Don, could you elaborate this?, because I dont undersand what you mean :surprise: maybe is a dumb question. :crying:


----------

