HSS
24th January 2012, 10:14 PM
Hi! I've potentially got a job coming up and thought a router may be the most efficient way of achieving consistancy. I've done a bit of a search and saw that someone had mentioned a router on a swinging arm being used to hollow large 1m diam bowls.
I will need to turn a shallow concave (300mm diam and only 5mm deep) in a 400mm square stool top (20-25mm laminated American walnut boards).
I could hand turn the concave (like a shallow bowl) but the order is for 8 and since it is such a shallow curve I think any variation would be very noticeble. Also, I need a good finished cut to reduce the amount of sanding since it's side grain and I want to avoid any hard-soft grain variation.
I was thinking of mounting a curved template to the bed on the tailstock side of the stool blank. I would then have the router base plate (or an extension of) ride along this template. The router would be orienated with end of the router bit facing the headstock.
A single pass would probably be ok given the shallow depth (5mm max at centre).
I thought of a swinging arm but given how shallow the curve is the radius may be a couple of metres.
Any thoughts...
I will need to turn a shallow concave (300mm diam and only 5mm deep) in a 400mm square stool top (20-25mm laminated American walnut boards).
I could hand turn the concave (like a shallow bowl) but the order is for 8 and since it is such a shallow curve I think any variation would be very noticeble. Also, I need a good finished cut to reduce the amount of sanding since it's side grain and I want to avoid any hard-soft grain variation.
I was thinking of mounting a curved template to the bed on the tailstock side of the stool blank. I would then have the router base plate (or an extension of) ride along this template. The router would be orienated with end of the router bit facing the headstock.
A single pass would probably be ok given the shallow depth (5mm max at centre).
I thought of a swinging arm but given how shallow the curve is the radius may be a couple of metres.
Any thoughts...