Thanks for all the nice comments!
Dale- you moved a lot of this long 8/4 pine (& wide 8/4 mahogany boards) for me after the pattern shop auction!
Combined with plywood faces, some of that pine made the bending forms for the project table.
Richard - you looked in the mirror sometime today, right?
Scott - 2 decades ago right after i bought the Thomson table, PM'r Frank Dorion sent me a pile of factory & other literature relating to the device, and how to use it; which helped fast track the learning curve. Today, a young person, or even a sensible older person, should learn cnc. Tracer/pattern duplicator systems are pretty cool. & there is a certain discipline and satisfaction to using them effectively. But you can change a cnc program with a few keystrokes or input in a simple drawing program. Tracing systems take patterns upon patterns, and changes in stylii, and changes in bit diameters to match. & then the stuff needs catalogued and stored, perhaps a dedicated drawer, or several. Not a thumb drive.
Yes, they work fairly well in 2D & even layered stacks of 2D. Possibly the only thing they could be "competitive" timewise today might be drilling complex hole patterns from an already made part. So long as the owner already had a good catalogue of stylii. & perhaps best run on a turret drill.
You probably know there's a 3D Gorton here, too. That still gets occasional use. Sigh.
smt