Mac Sheldon,  representing PantoRouter, spoke about the history of the PantoRouter and explained and demonstrated the machine to club members at the April club meeting.

After retiring from his process engineering job, Inventor Matthias Wandell developed a working mortise and tenon machine using the principle of the pantograph to reduce a large scale template to a smaller size desired for a mortise and tenon joint.  The machine, using a typical router,  takes mortise and tenon making to the next level – a crafter can chose a design for the tenon, or  custom make one – a useful tool when designing through tenons where the end of the tenon is exposed.

A practical engineer from India, Kuldeep Singh, was enamored by Mr. Wandell’s invention, which was made of wood, and further developed the machine from steel and then aluminum which was then sold online.

In addition to making basic and custom mortise and tenon joinery, PantoRouter can create box joints and dovetail joints.

An additional nice feature of this PantoRouter is the dust collection capability – as woodworkers know, routing kicks up a lot of dust.

Mr Sheldon finished up his presentation by showing numerous examples of joinery that can be accomplished by the PantoRouter.