Steve B (in aU2vf.6890$JT.1789@fed1read06) said:

| What is the price range for CNC routing? I mean the type of
| routing that is done by a sensor that touches/reads the pattern,
| then transfers it to wood and carves out what it senses. Or that
| follows a CAD type program. Are there any pantogram types of
| apparatuses that do this manually rather than by CNC?

Steve...

I believe that there are copy machines that more or less fit your
pantograph description; but I'm not familiar with them.

CNC routers start around US$5000 (see
www.cncwoodrouter.com/cncwoodrouter/ but note that the price doesn't
include shipping, which could be close to the price of the machine).
At the other end of the spectrum are machines with six-figure
pricetags.

ShopBot (www.shopbottools.com) sells a probe that can be used with
their machines to sense the shape of an object and save the data in a
file that can subsequently be used to cut a replica of the original
part. I have one but haven't needed/used it. I would expect that other
manufacturers offer similar accessories for their machines.

I have imported photographs into my CAD program, traced the
photographed objects, deleted the photographic image, saved the line
drawing as a DXF, and converted the DXF to a part program. The tracing
can be fairly tedious if there's a lot of detail, but has worked well
for me.

I'm in the process of building a 3-1/2 axis CNC machine that'll be
used for joinery. It's small enough that I'll be able to stash it
under my workbench when it's not being used. I think I'll have a final
cost under US$2K (not including the PC) and it'll be capable of
cutting all of the flavors of dovetail and M&T joints that can be done
by any of the passive jigs, plus a few joints of my own design.

If you're not in a big hurry, you might even consider building your
own machine. :-)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html