Everyone knows what its like to get a hankering for a specific food. In [Attoparsec]’s case, he wanted waffles. Not any waffles would do, though; he needed waffles in the form of a labyrinth. Those don’t exist, so he had to machine his own waffle maker.
Most of us would have run this off on a CNC, but [Attoparsec] isn’t into CNCing–manual machining is his hobby, and he’s not interested in getting into another one, no matter how much more productive he admits it might make him. We can respect that. After a bit of brain sweat thinking of different ways to cut out the labyrinth shape, he has the opportunity to pick up an antique Deckle pantograph mill.
These machines were what shops used to do CNC before the ‘computer numeric’ part was a thing. By tracing out a template (which [Attoparsec] 3D prints, so he’s obviously no Luddite) complex shapes can be milled with ease. Complex shapes like a labyrnthine wafflemaker. Check out the full video below; it’s full of all sorts of interesting details about the machining process and the tools involved.
If you don’t need to machine cast iron, but are interested in the techniques seen here, a wooden pantorouter might be more your speed than a one-tonne antique. If you have a hankering for waffles but would rather use CNC, check out these design tips to help you get started. If pancakes are more your style, why not print them?
Shoutout to [the gambler] for sending this into the tip line. We think he struck the jackpot on this one. If you have a tip, don’t be shy.
Just to watch the syrup slowly find it’s way out.
Excellent.
Theseus brand maple syrup.
I watched this the other day while eating a couple eggo’s from the toaster
I’m often jealous of the skills and tools of other makers…
Also, https://retrotechjournal.com/2003/03/23/building-a-custom-waffle-iron/
And
https://kelseyscottportfolio.weebly.com/waffle-iron.html
for additional inspirations
Haven’t seen a Tyler August article before maybe that’s just me but nice write up.
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Using old iron to make a waffle iron has some poetry to it.
the US mint still uses pantographs for making the dies to mint coins
I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in FreeCAD to design my own CNC router (I drew at least 6 different machines before deciding on which configuration I’m going to finally build, and still tweaking details for the final version), but still I sort of like these old pantograph mills. They also seem to be in fashion lately. I saw one from Inheritance machining, then from that mythbuster guy, and now from attoparsec. Or, I now realize it started with the pantograph router from Matthias Wandel, which has also been commercialized into an aluminimum version.
As Attoparsec mentions at the end of this video, there is a bit of a learning curve. For example @10:05 he explains inner corners always have a radius of the size of the mill, and that’s true, but later on he uses a conical mill, and that has a quite small tip radius. If he had printed his template with sharp corners, he could have run his conical stylus up in the corners and created quite sharp inner corners in the cast iron. This is also what CNC software such as V-carve does, and in due time I think FreeCAD’s path workbench will also learn to do this.
I was surprised at the size of the engraving letter templates he bought (@ 08:38) and he soon discovered only a few fit on his machine. Not much luck for words of more then a handful of letters. I recommend he uses this templates to make new letters at 1/3 to 1/5 the size.
I also recommend that anyone using (or interested in) this type of machine watches the Matthias Wandel (Woodgears) video’s. He uses some nice tricks such as the length of extension of a conical guide pin to make cuts with a specific width, and to control the final width of cut precisely.
At the moment my mind is wandering into copy mills. These things have a stylus with a hydraulic or electrical contact that can automatically follow a template.
He can mill words as long as he wants, but it just involves more manual shifting of the workpiece.
So he used a CNC printer to make a template to copy-mill to avoid using a CNC…
While it was acknowledged in the video, it’s good to reiterate the hobby of metal working on manual machines is quite a bit different from using a CNC machine or ordering the parts from a factory. I like the compromise the author found. Where you still get quite accurate parts, but get to do the machining yourself.
I don’t have experience with CNC myself, but see that you need quite a big and expensive machine to be reliable enough to do the work without babysitting. As where a 3D printer is a common and reliable tool, these days. I have to say, manual machining with 3D printed fixtures seem to work quite well.
It’d be quite a different video if he ordered the parts from a popular online machining shop.
I’m not ashamed to admit I first read “Antique Mill Satisfies Food Carvings”.
Indeed it would have been much easier to machine a labyrinth into the top of a cooked pancake.
“…he has the opportunity to pick up an antique Deckle pantograph mill.”
We have all had the opportunity to pick up a mill, but few of us have been able to. He must be very strong.
/I’ll be here all week…tip your waitress.
It’s nice to see more hackers on fediverse: https://clacks.link/@attoparsec
[Adam Savage] posted about getting a very similar mill on his youtube channel a few days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pku2VRADLGk
Deckel, not Deckle.