Shopsmith 555970 manual An Overview Of Pin Routing With Fixtures

555970 MARK V – MOUNTED OVERARM PIN ROUTER

keep it from sliding around while you make your cuts. To seat the stock in a profile fixture, just position it properly and tap it gently with the heel of your hand or a non-metallic mallet to seat the screw or nail tips.

4.Trace the grooves you cut in step two over the Table Pin, transferring your de- sign to the workpiece

Now, let’s review the specific procedures for making the various types of fixtures and us- ing them to duplicate your projects.

Figure 12. A typical profile fixture and

the picket fence top made with it.

AN OVERVIEW OF PIN ROUTING WITH FIXTURES

The basic principle of all Pin Routing fixtures is the same, no matter which style of fixture you decide to use, with one difference:

•With screw-down and clamp-in style fix- tures, a template is first cut and guided against the Table Pin, while the router bit transfers the design to the laminate side of the fixture. This process creates the fix- ture grooves that will guide the Router Bit as it cuts your duplicates.

•With profile style fixtures, the cut-out template IS the fixture.

The basic, four-step Pin-Routing process, in a nutshell:

1.Make a template in the shape of your desired finished piece.

2.Use the template to cut the grooves in the laminate side of your fixture

3.Attach a workpiece blank to the oppo- site side of the fixture

HOW TO MAKE SCREW-DOWN AND CLAMP-IN FIXTURES

The fixture-making process is really quite simple. Here’s the step-by-step process:

1.Make a Template – Start by tracing a full-size pattern for your project onto a piece of 1/2" thick solid (without voids) plywood or MDF.

Why 1/2" thick? Because the screw-in Pins that you’ll be routing against (and over) are 3/8" high and the template must be thicker than the height of the pin to allow for free movement.

Cut out your shape carefully with a Bandsaw and/or Scroll Saw. Keep out- side of your cutting lines at all times. Always leave a small amount of mate- rial that you can sand down to its exact shape when you’ve finished with a drum sander or your choice of sanding device.

Alternative Method

As an alternative to making a template from scratch, you can also use an exist- ing item as your fixture-making tem- plate. In our Figure 13 example, we’ve screwed an existing awards plaque to our fixture blank.

With the item attached to the particle- board side of your fixture blank, trace it against the table pin to form the grooves in the laminate side of your fix- ture (See Fig. 14).

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