Show us your shop made tools and jigs.

[Doug Carpenter]

I thought we should share neat things we have made that work hard in the shop.

I built a duplicator for making gunstocks. I got the plans from Copycarver.com. It is a fun project to built and the plans are easy to follow. The allowance he gives for hardware was way off but I also imbellished the project over all. I am finding that holding the workpeices is the main challenge.

[John Thompson]

Excellent says it all. Add clever.. ;)

[Doug Carpenter]

Bueller.......Bueller? Anyone?

[Darrell Bottoms]

That's very nice. I must admit that I've never seen a duplicator before. Care to put up some information on how one works?

[Doug Carpenter]

Well, this machine has two parts; a stylus and a cutter.

The stylus is the drill chuck and the router is the cutter.

The router bit and stylus must be the same in shape and size. For instance if you have a 3/8" straight bit then you need a stylus 3/8" in diameter. They both must also be the same in length.

You mount a pattern on the stylus side and a blank of wood on the side with the router. Their distance apart equals the distance between the stylus and the router.

As you move the stylus over the pattern the router moves in exactly the same way. So it is an analog type system. The router simply only goes where the stylus goes. In my case I put a stock that I want to match on the stylus side and a walnut blank on the other. Them I slowly move the stylus back and forth along the existing stock and the rounter cuts another. It roughs out the shape. Then if you want you can change to a smaller bit and matching stylus and do it again. with each smaller bit you get more detail. In my case I usually could stop at this point and do the final shaping by hand.

Mine has a pivot head on it so I can position the cutter head any way I want. If you were cutting letters for a sign you would want the head perpendicular to the face of the sign so that your letters have a flat bottom. I built mine to pivot so that I can partially inlet the stock to the gun or if a particular stock requires a mortise perpendicular to the face of the stock.

One could also alter this machine to fit their work. Mine is long enough to accomodate a rifle stock just in case I should need to do a longer rifle stock as oposed to a shorter two peice shotgun stock.

The success of this machine depends entirely on how precisley it is built. There are many duplicators on the market than run in the neiborhood of $3000. This was a good option for me not only because it was much cheaper to build but I liked being able to taylor it to what I was doing. And I must admit I really enjoyed building it. There are those in the stockmaking communuity that scoffed at the idea of a shop made machine. I probrably wouldn't hold up to the rigors of mass production but for a one at atime custom guy it works just fine. When doing a stock a machine will only get you so far anyway; the rest is all hand work.

The guy that developed the plans carves the most incredible fish. He to just roughs them out on the duplicator and does the rest by hand.

His website is www.copycarver.com (http://www.copycarver.com) it has a good desription of the uses. He sells the plans and has links to his website that showcases his carving. The sites are definately worth checking out.

I will post a picture tomorrow of a stock in progress. I have to find the pics.

[Doug Carpenter]

Here is a picture of a forearm stock in progress.

[Darrell Bottoms]

I appreciate you taking the time to explain how the duplicator works as-well-as the picture. Very nice work, both on the duplicator and the stock you were working on. I'm going to check out the link you provided...very interesting concept for this fairly relatively newbie to woodworking.

Again...thanks for taking the time.

[george wilson]

I built the 2 spindle carver that is in the toolmaker's shop in Col. Williamsburg. I sold it to them before I retired. It is the size of a queen size bed,too big for the space I have at home. I don't have pictures of it on hand.

Now,I'm building a smaller,but more accurate one at home. Single spindle. The frame is heavier than the large one. Mine has linear bearings and Thompson precision ground steel shafts for the carriage to slide on.

A gunstock carver has to be VERY accurate to do an accurate job. Some are about as accurate as a milling machine. That is what I want mine to be like. It is all machined aluminum,with linear bearings also on the cross slide movement. The up and down action is a walking beam action on ball bearings.

My centers revolve with a tight chain drive for no slipping.

I'm primarily interested in guitar carving,but tend to go over the top!.

[Doug Carpenter]

George, I would be intersested in seeing pictures of your material holds.

If you can post them.

thanks, Doug

[george wilson]

I don't know when I'll ever get my new duplicator done. I could take a few pics,but it isn't complete. I have a machine shop to make these all metal models,but yours looks perfectly able to carve guitars on.

[Andrew Long]

Doug,

Can your duplicator be set up to do decoy heads (Goose or Ducks)?

[Doug Carpenter]

Andrew,

It will do decoys. I seem to remember something about the heads. Some process of doing several at a time.

I bought the plans for it from copycarver.com

You can check it out. They guy that came up with the plans does fish but I do recall something about ducks.

He was a little off on his estimate as far as cost was concerned. He says you can build one for like 200 dollars or less but it cost me that just in hardware. I would say 350 to 400 is more realistic. It works well.

I added the pivot head because it looked like it might be usefull. I also made the head easily removable in case I wanted to use different routers or maybe a dremel for fine work. That way I could just change heads instead of changing routers.

[Gene Crain]

Great machine...kudos to you for building it! :D

Take the next plunge and build/buy a cnc router and...voila, perfect and faster than ever before...


Gene crain
plantasymaderas dot com
cnczacatitos dot com