what bit

[jtmullet2006]

Hellow I am building a bass for a friend of mine he wants it to be 2 inches thick and I have made a template out of some 5/8 mdf I had laying around what template bit would you recomend to cut the body out of.

[Malibu]

Presumably you mean what router bit?
I made one because I needed (wanted...) extra reach. I turned down a steel bar to 1/2" for the router collet, then stepped the extra length to 15/32" for clearance from the jig and put a 1/4" reamed hole in it. I used a 1/2" straight cutter with a 1/4" shank and slid a bearing over the shank (1/4" ID and 1/2" OD) all held together with a grub screw.
The centers MUST be spot on or there's some serious vibration issues happening!
It works ok and did the job without any vibration... The bearing floats on the cutter shank, but it would be better with lock-tight to hold it in place.
See the photo and it should be pretty clear.

[gratay]

your a clever little fella .....i needed something like that the other day when making my radius dishes..... i had my bit barely in the collet to get the depth i needed and after losing the bit a couple of times at 30000 rpm my racing heart told me to redesign my jig.....
it all worked out in the end and after routing mdf for about 4 hours I hope i never have to do that again.

[Jackspira]

That is a nifty piece of work Malibu!
I've ended up with two cutters TJ, one with a bearing on the end, and the other with the bearing on the shank (both are 50mm long bits). It was the only way I could get a reasonably clean cut all the way around, going around the whole body from one direction chewed the wood up too much cutting uphill against the grain. So I use one bit to cut down into the curves then change the bit and flip the body over and cut into the curves from the other way...theres probably a simpler way!
If its a one off job, maybe it would be less trouble to cut closly to the shape with the bandsaw, then smooth it out with a block and some 80 grit paper?
Jack

[contrebasse]

Maybe it would be less trouble to cut closly to the shape with the bandsaw, then smooth it out with a block and some 80 grit paper?

Or a jigsaw and a spokeshave.