Making pantorouter followers

When I did my pantorouter comparison with the all-metal

version that Kuldeep builds, I mentioned that I liked how
Kuldeep made the followers with a bearing on a shaft, but
didn't have a way to attach a bearing myself, so I'm keeping
with the old system of mounting follower bearings on my
wooden pantorouter.
I received many suggestions, such as using Locktite to
mount the bearing on the shaft. But my real problem is
actually that shaft size and bearing holes in the bearings I
have don't match. But with so many suggestions, I started
thinking about how to make round followers on shafts for
my pantorouter.

If I cut a
thread on the
end of the
shaft, I could
then mount
various nuts
on it, like this
knock down
nut with a
nice wide
circular
flange, so it already forms a round follower. You can buy
nuts like that at The Home Depot.

Or I could put
a hex nut on
the end of the
shaft and
grind that
round on my
bench
grinder. With
a bit of
sanding and
polishing, that
makes for a
fairly easily
sliding round
follower, and
it turned out
quite precise
too.

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1/2"
bearings
have
smaller
holes in
them, but
using the
same
technique
on the
bench
grinder I
was able
to grind
the shaft down so it fit in the bearing, though not tightly. But
some shims, cut from aluminium cans, made for a tight fit.

Whenever I take something apart, I always keep the

washers and other small hardware that might be useful. So
I have a whole drawer full of round bushings and spacers,
and I started to dig through those to see what might work.

I found some
bushings that
fit snugly on
the 6 mm
shafts I was
using. I used
6 mm to
make it
compatible
with
Kuldeep's. I
used one
bushing as a follower directly and ground another one down
a little (again on the bench grinder) to fit the hole of a 26
mm bearing I had. Again, with a shim from an aluminium
can to make it fit snug. I also found one bushing that fit
perfectly between the 6 mm shaft and the 8 mm hole for
another bearing.

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You could also make your followers out of 1/4" bolts, which
already have threads on them. Combined with a nut with
integral washer, as shown, all you would have to do is glue
the nut on and cut off the bolt head to make a follower.

Going through my junk, I made quite a lot of followers of

different sizes.
But one size I didn't have was 1" (25.4 mm), so I decided to
make one that size out of wood.

I started by
cutting a
slightly larger
circle from
Baltic birch
plywood on
the bandsaw.
The hole I
drilled is a bit
undersized
for the shaft. I
roughened up
the end of the
shaft and
used some
Gorilla glue in
the hole and shaft, then drove the shaft in with a hammer.

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After that, I
spun the disk
in a hand drill,
held up to my
disk sander
to make it
perfectly
round.
I'm guiding
the shaft with a piece of wood, near the end to make sure
it's steady. I ended up sanding that one down to just under
1", then applied some UHMW tape to it to bring it back up
to size and make it slide easier.
UHMW tape is also useful for up-sizing metal followers.
Each turn of UHMW tape adds 0.3 mm to the diameter of
the follower. Just be sure to have a whole number of turns
on the follower so the tape is the same thickness all
around.

I ended up making a lot of followers, mostly from random

bushings and round plastic parts. I have no more than 1
mm of size difference between most of them.

I made a mounting block to clamp the 6 mm shaft on my

pantorouter. I didn't have a 6 mm drill, but a 15/64" drill
made for a hole that fit the 6 mm shaft just snugly. The only
change I had to make to my wooden pantorouter was to
drill a 17/64" (6.7 mm) hole all the way through the
operating lever, then mount the new holder. The orange
knob on the holder clamps the block together to lock the 6
mm shaft in it. That knob came from a broken Ryobi
circular saw.

Making tapered and slotted tenon templates

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Having figured out how to make followers like on the all

metal pantorouter, the next challenge was to make the
clever templates with the slot in the middle and tapered
edges around the outside. The tapered edges of the tenon
template allow fine adjustments in tenon size to be made.

I set my table
saw to four
degrees, then
cut a bevel on a
piece of 18 mm
thick Baltic birch
plywood. 18 mm
is perhaps a bit
thick, but I
figured more
thickness is
better, and the
next thinnest Baltic birch plywood I had was 11 mm.

With the wide side of the plywood facing up, I set my

compass to half the width, then use it with the point on
either edge to check the center of the mark, and draw an
arc from there.

I tilted the bandsaw to four degrees, checking it with a

speed square, because my homemade bandsaw doesn't
have any angle scale.

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Cutting out the semicircles. I cut within half a millimeter to

the line...

...so that I don't have to sand away very much material

finishing it up.
For my first tapered template, I drew the semicircles on the
front (the narrow side), but then realized the disk sander
table doesn't tilt towards the disk. Oops! That's why I drew
the semicircles on the back this time. I was however able to
tilt the strip sander table towards the belt a bit, but the disk
sander is better for this job.

I cut the slot

in the
template on
my
pantorouter,
just using a
straight piece
of wood to
roll the
follower
bearing along
to get the
straight line.
Despite being very careful, I got the line about 1 mm off
center and, worse yet, about 0.2 mm higher on one side.
Arrgh! Sliding the template on a router table to cut the slot could be iffy, but would avoid the possibility of getting the angle wrong. I
ended up "fixing" it by doing a plunge cut on the table saw (with the template held down against the fence), then finishing it with a chisel.

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Gluing the template on a backer board, being very careful

to keep the template exactly flush along the bottom edge to
make sure it's straight.
So I hope this gives you some ideas for how to make
followers and tapered templates for a wooden pantorouter.

But if you
haven't built a
pantorouter
yet, I'd
recommend
starting out
with just a
bearing on a
block and
leave these
fancy
followers for
a later upgrade. You probalby want to start using your
pantorouter as soon as possible, and mounting a bearing
on a block is much easier.
Also, if you attach the follower bearing on the block with a
countersink screw, if you back out the screw just a bit, the bearing can slide the same amount in all directions. So even with the "old"
method of making the followers, you can still effectively adjust the fit, making the tenon slightly smaller by loosening the bearing
mounting screw.

See also:

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Making tenon templates

for the pantorouter

Big mortise and tenons

with the pantorouter

Comparing pantorouters

Dave Tenney on
making tenon templates

Quickie workbench
using these templates

More about
the pantorouter

Pantorouter XL

Tearing down a printer for

8 mm and 6 mm shafting

Back to my woodworking webiste

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