good morning gentlemen!...a couple of comments on templates and copying... 
we do quite a bit of multiples in our shop, mostly 4, 6, and 8...extremely 
rare if we do more than that of any one piece... over the years we have 
tried and used a few different types of copiers, all on our lathe, not the 
legacy... beginning with a sears copier that is very much like the shop 
smith setup... we found this to be somewhat advantageous, as you could 
position the cutter/follower in different orientations to get into "nooks" 
and "crannies", so to speak... we even would change the profile of the 
cutter and follower to a pointed shape(rather than the rounded shape) to 
clean up all the "steps", rather than using a turning chisel after the 
copying was done... the advantage to doing this copy work on a lathe is the 
speed you could run the spindle/work, and thus finish with a very clean 
piece needing very little sanding... the disadvantage was that it could(and 
did!) get to be a bit dangerous at times, depending on what type of wood 
you were working with, what profile you were trying to do, etc....also. 
having to remove the copier and reattach it numerous times, was a bit 
awkward and tedious...we then switched to the vega copier, for several 
reasons...first, we were able to get it 10 ft. long to suit our lathe and 
our jobs(mostly bed posts)...second, it was of the type that works as a 
sliding carriage which, once mounted, is very rigid... one hand moves the 
carriage left and right, the other moves the cutter in and out... with very 
little practice, excellent results can be achieved, and it was very safe to 
operate...third was the fact that we could mount the copier on the backside 
of the lathe permanently, without it effecting the capacity of the what the 
lathe could turn in regards to diameter...so we would do a copy, and 
without turning off the machine, go to the front and immediately do any 
touch ups with our turning chisels...when copying spindles, finials, etc. 
on the legacy, you need a long cutter to extend down from the router 
collet, to be able to reach down to the center line ( 3 o'clock or 9 
o'clock position)...probably the smallest you would want to go is a 3/8 in. 
diameter bit, and even then, that diameter could be dangerous...1/2 in. is 
the safest way to go... and getting into details of a piece with that 
diameter bit is impossible... cleaning up the details with different router 
bits is also tedious, but if time is not a factor, certainly doable on the 
legacy...in regards to templates, our approach was if we needed a thin, 
flat pattern of what we were making, we simply cut a "slice" from the first 
piece that we made by hand(no template) on the lathe...this slice was cut 
from the center of the turning we made, usually 3/8 in to 1/2 in thick... 
yes, it did "ruin" our first, hand-turned piece, but we were keeping that 
piece anyway, for our template "library", and the cost factor was 
calculated into the job's estimate...these "flat" templates were used 
mostly for milling work into a piece after it was turned, as our vega 
duplicator could copy from a fully turned piece, and the piece was sliced 
after the turning work was done...we found this method to be fast and 
accurate, rather than make a template from plastic or wood...joe b.

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