Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

why don't they do a youtub on 3d carving part of tool

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

You spend more time trying to make this product do what it is supposed to do than producing anything useful. Cut letters are too large, font choices are not good. This is a great idea gone bad - not well engineered. You are better off routing letters by hand. Taking mine back to the store for a refund.

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

I am very impressed with this pantograph. I had less than three full evenings to design and build a commissioned box out of oak, with carved inset lettering. After fussing around with the carving, I visited the Woodridge IL Woodcraft store and the sales associate recommended this pantograph. It took about two hours to set up the pantograph, design and print my own letter templates, test, and finish the routed inset letters. During my testing I came up with a method to evenly space the letters, but ended up doing it by eye during the production run. I used the Milescraft roundnosed router bit. I also tried a v-groove bit and determined it would better for line drawing and lettering outlining. I could not be happier with the pantograph and plan to use it a ton for future projects.I produced the letter templates using Coreldraw and set the pantograph to 50% reduction. Since I needed 3-1/2" inset letters, I created 7"+ letter templates. The 50% reduction is a great idea, as it reduces imperfections as you follow the letter with the stylus. I mounted the pantograph to the 48" x 20" plywood as recommended in the instructions. Worked out perfectly, but now I need to find a place to hang it.I am a semi-pro, with a shop full of professional tools and always thought that the Milescraft Pantograph was a gimmick and flimsy. Absolutely not so.[...]

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

I have been very skeptical regarding this pantograph product. I have a dedicated shop filled with professional tools. This pantograph just looked a bit "light" and gimmicky. But when faced to carve inset letters for a commissioned oak box, and with a very tight schedule, I decided to purchase the Milescraft pantograph from our local Woodcraft store. Absolutely glad I did.I needed a specific lettering font and size, thus I used Corel Draw to create my own single letter templates. They worked perfectly. During my prototyping I came up with a simple spacing system, but ended up going by eye during production. I printed each letter on 8-1/2 x 11 paper and affixed the templates to the table using masking tape at each corner.I am using the 50% reduction setup. This makes it easy to size the template. The beauty of the 50% reduction is that it is much easier to follow the template and reduce imperfections. Thanks to this pantograph, adding lettering and simple line drawing carvings to my current and future projects will be much simpler with more predictable results.The mechanism is utter simplicity and robust enough for my DeWalt medium-sized router. I mounted the pantograph to a 48" x 20" work table. Cannot conceive of using it without it being "mounted". My only concern is how/where to store it.I have used 60 deg v-groove bits and the roundnosed bits from Milescraft. For the inset lettering, I used the milescraft 3/8" roundnosed bit and it worked perfectly. I will use the v-groove bit to add line drawing carving.In summary, I cannot say enough good things about this inexpensive and versatile pantograph. Should have purchased it years ago! [...]

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

The letters even on the smallest setting are still to big to make a nice sign, they need to make it so they can be reduced up to 75%. They spacing on the space points are off on some letters and have to manually done or the spacing is to far off.

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

I was nervous reading other negative feedback, but this is a great product. After building my jig, it was smooth sailing.

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

Instructions are backward, setup is simple, but orientation of tracer is hard to get use to, because of thickness. Overall use is OK but it NOT as great as it seems

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

Great addition for my hobbies - adds a new touch to projects

Comments about Milescraft Router 3D Pantograph :

The instructions seem to be backwards as to the scaling of the objects. No template for block lettering which has to be skewed to make it come out correctly. Needs more templates since standard lettering will not work perfectly. Fail to see how this would ever work for a duplicator but have not had time to try it yet.