Home made Pods

[routerman7030]

Has anyone ever made there own pods of their router? I have a job where i have to use my aggrate head to cut some pockets for door pulls, was wondering if anyone had any good advice for me?

thanks

[HevyMetl]

Routerman,

 

Sorry I can't help with the pods. I just thought is was nice to see another user in this area, and thought I would say hello.

[Travis_Buchanan]

I have made both pods and pod tables. What type of table top do you currently have? Is it ldf, a smooth surface, or a grid type? Do you have a vacuum manifold that you plug lines into?

[Trevor Bailey]

I am assuming that you have some kind of "grid" type table. If you have round pockets, try pvc and turn the bodies to size and face the lengths to what you need. I dont suggest milling these. Do them on a lathe as they will be much more accurate.

 

If you have a square grid table, lay the tubing or whatever you have to confine a section of the table for a pob table. You can build this out of MDF, but I would look at a paper-based phenolic if the fixture is going to be used over and over.

 

If you need help with vacuum type fixturing, post and ask more questions. Many people here have experience in that area.

[Travis_Buchanan]

Here for my products, IMHO is the perfect router table. I designed this about 3 years ago. It is a grid table, pod table, and I also have a vacuum manifold on the side of the machine. For the pods I had a machine shop turn me some pvc that would fit in the circular cuts on the table the pods also have on o-ring groove in each end. The yellow plugs remove for vacuum from the bed. Sory I can't find a picture of the actual pod, and I no longer work for this company.

 

 

[Trevor Bailey]

Sweet set up Travis.

[Travis_Buchanan]

Thanks Trevor, This table worked very well for us in the furniture factory. I could process panels off of the pods, or vacuum down a fixture on the grid table and use the manifold for vacuuming the part down. I also used the pods to locate the fixtures. I had a laser projector for locating panel stock. It was a killer set-up. BTW the T-slots in the table are for a rotary device that I used to turn & rope post and do other machining that I could chuck between centers. I will post a picture of the rotaries.

[Travis_Buchanan]

[AARONIS]

Nice setup Travis.

I had to make my own pods on a grid style table because the operators couldn't stay off of the aluminum ones. Our tooling guys loved us for awhile there. Ended up making them out of white nylon. I duplicated the bottom of pod to fit in the grid and modified the top to accept a piece of 1/4" rubber cord. Cut cost by 85%. Bean counters love that stuff.

[Tom Dorgan from American Precision]

We make our own pod tables from 1/2" sheet of aluminum based on NEMI tables bolted to top of our stock grid table and use their pods. Great tools but terrible quality IMHO. We made some of our own pods to hold a set of double arched rails for 5 piece doors. Can't find any of my pics right now. I also like the Carter Flip pod setups as well.

[Travis_Buchanan]

Tommy, we have a 5-axis Onsrud with a NEMI table. I do not have any pods, as we are always runing vacuum fixtures on this machine. The aluminum grid works good for positioning fixtures and I like the steel plugs.

[Tom Dorgan from American Precision]

Travis,

You need some of the nemi pod stops. They plug into one of the holes and suck down out of the way when you apply vacuum. Pretty neat for secondary work on a router when you need accurate positioning and still need to trim the edges.

[Travis_Buchanan]

I had some of those stopper pods on a CMS machine. Worked great for flat panel processing. All I do now is curved or rf plywood. I do cut a small amount of flat plywood but I cut all of it on my 3-axis Shoda. I have a LDF/pegboard jig that I use for cutting flatstock.

[routerman7030 (home)]

Hey guys thanks for all the input, i am going to post some pictures of the pod set-up i made. have to get the pics off my computer at work.