We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled program for this good old Blades micro podcast. Pantographs. You've probably in your lifetime seen pantographs in mechanisms and things like that, but would you know that pantographs are also used pretty heavily in knife making, especially in the world of pocket knives and shield inlays and things like that. A pantograph is a a writing implement or a copying implement that through mechanical linkages connects um uh components in parallelograms together so that the movement of a pen um will mirror what you're tracing on the other end where the uh where the the pencil or or pen is. All right. From a historical perspective, the first panographs were described in Haron of Alexandria's manuscript Mechanics in uh somewhere around 60 AD-ish, uh probably a little bit after. But uh through the ages, primarily it did it had been used to copy uh text and other things and also uh do uh draft uh draft uh transformation and uh transcription early on. As we move into the um early or the the 1800s and and phonographs, uh they they used to have old cylinders that uh the uh the uh hill and dale or the grooves and peaks of of sound would be cut into a wax cylinder, and you could use a pantograph type of mechanism to be able to recut those same uh uh hill and dales into new uh new records or cylinders uh to be played back in phonographs. Um as you start getting into the turn of the century and especially in the 1920s, mechanical panographs uh or elect electric panographs became a thing in machining because there wasn't so many ways to replicate um replicate works uh based off of uh of models. And panographs was one of the only ways. Through this mechanism, you could copy a master and actually transform that with a uh router bit or something for handle materials. They've done them on shoes and so on and so forth, like the uh the wooden chalks or things like that that you put in shoes. And um in the Industrial Revolution, they were very beneficial because you can consider a pantograph that uh like an electric pantograph uh as the early predecessors to numerical control or CNC machines, and they're still used a lot today, especially in machining, um, sign making, and so on and so forth. And what you've probably seen them in is from a pop culture perspective, uh you've seen them like the old cuckoo clocks where the uh bird pops out of the clock. Um, usually it's a pantograph scissor type of uh mechanism. Um you've probably seen them in pantographing mirrors that that pull in and out with a scissor type of uh uh uh mechanism, and you've probably also seen them in baby gates. So those wooden gates that collapse or accordion in and out, that's a pantograph mechanism as well. Now the pantographs that we're talking about for knife making are the mechanical ones. You can think of those as um uh Hermes and and Gorton and Deckel and Alexander. Uh some of those are the the the names of popular pantograph makers, and they're comprised of a base, the pantograph itself, the stylus, and the spindle. Now, what you do is you you have a series of different collets that go in the spindle to hold different bits or cutters of some sort, and on the stylus side, you have different circumference styluses that you will trace letters, you can trace outlines of things and uh the internal um pockets of of things like shields uh for inlays, and it will replicate it based on a ratio. Now, most modern panographs, especially like the Gordon P1-2, um, has those the panograph arms have different ratios that can be set, and probably the most typical one inside of knife making is a four to one ratio, although you can do a one-to-one, you can do a two to one, and so on and so forth. Um the idea, at least in knife making, is that in in cutting out shields and doing shield inlays, you want to have a very tight-fitting shield uh that goes into a pocket. You need to be able to cut both of them out of a given medium. Um, the panograph makes it very easy to do this, where uh whereas the only options uh previously were to use parser plates, which is basically a hardened plate that allows you to cut out the pocket for the shield, and then you would need to either hand cut out and file a shield or buy pre-made ones, depending on where you're getting them from. Um there's also a world of pantograph users that will use them for uh interframes, so cutting out pockets and inlays using different materials for stone and whatnot. Um engraving can be done with it. So, for instance, my maker's mark on all my blades is is pantographed in. I take a hardened carbide bit after I've surface ground a blade, and on the casso, I will uh I will engrave my name in and then blacken it out. Um these are very beneficial um uh for replicating uh work over and over again because you have to think a lot less about um you know cutting and fitting and and the rigmarole that goes into that uh when you do everything by hand. However, panographs are pretty rare. Um they're not impossible to find, but usually there's a cost associated with it, probably somewhere in the uh $350 to $2,000 range, depending on whether you're doing a two-dimensional or a three-dimensional panograph and um what tooling comes with it. The other thing that is uh an encumbrance with pantographs is that collets are very hard to find and uh styluses are very hard to find, although you can have them lathed out, and uh parts to replace them are hard to find. So if you're getting into the world of pantographs, expect to probably spend about $500 to $1,000 for them, plus um any type of tooling that you might need, plus any of the templates that you might need. Now, one cool thing that um Chris Crawford has done is take uh 3D printing and use that to uh to develop out templates that can be used for pantograph shield inlays and inner frames, and and uh there's a few guys that use them for bolster um uh bolster fit-ups and things like or ornate uh fittings uh for the for the scales or covers and and bolsters. And those are pretty interesting. I know other pantograph makers that uh use them for everything. So if you want to do fluting on bolsters, they have a process for that. Uh, some cut out the spray mechanism for uh for the slip joint uh mechanism itself. Um, some use them for lockbacks and and cutting out individual uh components if they want tight, tight fairly tight tolerances. Um, there are a lot of different size pantographs. Uh some are not uh designed for heavy milling type of operations, so the smaller the unit, obviously, the less it's going to handle. Uh there is an article that you can read on Chris Crawford's website about pantographs and uh like as a one-on-one, and he has some really good videos up as well. And there is a a proxen pantograph that uses uh, I believe it's a a Dremel type of um rotary mechanism to be able to cut out pockets and shields, and as long as you're not uh uh milling out a lot of material, uh that works pretty well. Um you know, there are so many uses for a pantograph, especially when you want to copy something, and you can build your own models for it or your own templates for it and lather, rinse, repeat as much as you want to. Really, the sky is almost the limit because uh you know it's limited really by your imagination because of how versatile they are. I would highly encourage you to look at Chris Crawford's templates, his uh his Panagraph 101 video, and uh read up a little bit more on them because they're really interesting little tools, and I know a lot of knife makers uh want them, uh some knife makers have them, and we all are a pretty tight-knit community when it comes to trying to source out parts, troubleshoot, and uh you know, especially uh doing shield inlays in the process of doing all that. We share uh those those details and information and um you know helpful tips and tricks fairly readily. So I hope that helps. Uh Panagraphs, kind of the an odd duck inside of knife making. Um, you've probably seen it before in a lot of different mechanisms. Uh, it's you know, if you get the opportunity, uh search locally and see if you can find them. There's uh quite a few that circulate on eBay. Uh the largest issue is just being able to get it shipped to where you're at or being able to pick it up because they're pretty heavy. I think the Gordon uh P1-2 weighs somewhere around 850 to 900 pounds, so it's not impossible to move, obviously, um, but it is a little bit cumbersome and it can get a little bit pricey on shipping. But they're cool little machines. I really enjoy mine. I have two of them, and I do a lot of different operations with them. You know, specifically I do uh shield inlays and I do uh engraving for my name, and I'm also getting into doing uh other operations like cutting out fluting and and so on and so forth for bolsters. So uh I hope you find that interesting.