Tips on a pantograph mill.

AJF

AJF

Joined
Feb 15, 2007
Messages
72
Hello All,
I'm in the market for a pantograph mill. Looking for tips.

Thanks in advance!
Andy
 
Deckle and Gorton were the king's of those.
The specifics depend on what you want to do. Some of the pantographs were just intended for engraving, such as markings in dies and molds, while others were capable of real stock removal. There's also hydraulic tracers, but they are vastly overkill for anything a knifemaker would ever do.

There is a bit of a toss up in size as well. Small ones obviously take up less space, big ones are obviously more capable.
Large ones are also generally (substantially) cheaper as not many people want one taking up space. Same reason a little atlas or southbend shaper (glorified toys) will sell for a couple thousand, and a big Cincinnati (incredibly capable machine) would be $100 on the high end.


So my advice would be to figure out how much space you have, and exactly what you want to do with the machine. That will determine specifics to look for.

And then the standard machine tool buying practices apply, checking for slop and wear, missing or broken parts, signs of abuse, ect
 
Thanks Geoff,
Would you lean toward either brand machine for available tooling or parts?
Andy
 
That's hard to say. Personally I'd lean towards whichever one I find the best example of for the right price. Pretty well every part could be made by a decent machinist with the required tools. It's often cheaper to make parts than try to find them.
 
I'm happy to help! Feel free to send me pictures of specific machines you're looking at as well, and I could give you my thoughts condition and completeness wise
 
I'm leaning towards the Gorton. It will be a little more work. But the price is good.
 
I've seen worse, not too bad of a deal. That machine would be good for inlays, engraving and such. Probably not up to much heavier work such as profiling parts though.
Hard to tell too much from the pictures, but it looks like you could get it running again.

Be worth checking out some machinery dealers as well. Thoroughly obsolete equipment like that often goes quite cheap through industrial sources, hobbiest people are about the only ones who buy them.
 
Geoff Flato said:
That's hard to say. Personally I'd lean towards whichever one I find the best example of for the right price. Pretty well every part could be made by a decent machinist with the required tools. It's often cheaper to make parts than try to find them.
Click to expand...

I bought a used Deckel GK21 a while back from an auction. Price really wasn't bad at all, but it was missing collets. I looked online, and one site was selling individual collets for more than I paid for the machine! It boggles my mind what some people think things like that are worth. I made one with about a dollar's worth of 4140, thought it has just a bit of runout since my lathe is not dialed in. A guy with a half decent turning center could crank them out by the dozens all day long, but let's charge $220 each for a thimble sized collet... :rolleyes:
 
Exactly... I needed a new blade for my Landis 3in1 leather machine. Landis in Montreal wanted $200 for one. I made my own from 50¢ worth of A2 in about 20 minutes
Thing looked like a 2" pizza cutter wheel, but they price it like its solid platinum
 
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