You can also view my gallery at Designs en Bois.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Finally got a-"round" to another video

Sorry for the lapse between the last video and this one (I'm not happy if I don't have a new video out each week). This is the second installment of the round pedestal project, all about cutting the circular tops. Since I did nine of these round tops, I decided it was worth making a small investment in a band saw jig to speed up production. I went with the Carter Accuright jig for the job. After completing the initial setup, I was pretty happy with the results.  However, I then used a shop-made jig for cleaning up the edges using a router - and almost made a major snafu.  Somehow my pilot hole was able to actually migrate about an inch across a piece of solid lumber.  I've triple checked, and the Bermuda triangle does not include any part of New England but I know something supernatural was to blame. It couldn't have been ME after all...



Right click to download a high resolution version.

8 comments:

rgdaniel said...

Very cool! Begs the question, in my mind at least, as someone who has a bandsaw with a granite table, and really not enough space around the bandsaw for cutting a circle that large, could you have done the whole operation just using the router jig. It would take a bunch of passes, but why not?

Rob Bois said...

Great question. The problem with the router jig is that it's best used for "clean-up", but not cutting the circle in the first place. Especially in thick maple like I had, the amount of work the router would need to do to hog out the material would probably burn out the bit, the router, or both. And it would not leave a smooth surface. The better solution would be to rough out the circle using the band saw by hand, or use a jig saw to remove most of the waste. I got the best results when the router was only removing the last 1/16" of an inch of material. You might be able to use just the router jig with very thin material or plywood, but not for thicker stock.

Bill Akins said...

Great video. I made a jig awhile back to cut bowl blanks. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5v2xiegesk
I noticed that you had lost your center. After I cut a blowl blank and then use the same center hole to mount on the lathe, I notice that is off a bit too. I wonder if blade drift has something to do with it?

Rob Bois said...

I only lost my center on one of the three tops, and I'm fairly certain it was due to the fact that I fed the stock through my drum sander obscuring the original hole, and when I redrilled the hole before jumping to the router jig, I missed the center. At least that's the logical explanation - I'm not convinced there wasn't something supernatural at work in my shop. Bwahaaaahaaaaa

Robert said...

Great series. Thank you. Great tip on how to find the center of a circle.

Rob Bois said...

Of corse the better tip is to not lose the center in the first place ;)

Anonymous said...

Another great and "Well rounded video" Rob :), One question for ya what size blade on your bandsaw did you use, is there a certain size you like or will any size due?

And there was nothing supernatural about the center shift. I went down there and moved it on ya...lol

Thanks Guy

Rob Bois said...

Guy, I had a feeling you were the one that moved my center, thanks for fessing up. As for the blade, my approach is always to use the widest blade that is rated for the job. So for this circle, I was able to use my 3/4" blade (the same one I use for resawing). I didn't care about the quality of the finish edge since I was moving on to the router jig, but did want to make sure it didn't wander much. I run Timberwolf blades, and they have a great chart for calculating the minimum diameter for any of their blades.

http://bit.ly/jA1uMa