Cutting thin circles from board

[Dengue]

I would like to make some timber circles for inlay about 3 mm wide and 3mm deep, with about 40 mm diameter.

Can anyone please recommend the neatest and safest way of doing something like this ?

[doug3030]

I would like to make some timber circles for inlay about 3 mm wide and 3mm deep, with about 40 mm diameter.

You didnt tell us how many you want to cut. it might be different if you want to make many or a few.

one method: Use a hole saw to cut a circle or circles partway through a board, or do it with a router and guides with a template.

Say your board is 15mm thick, cut using whichever method you choose down to about 12 - 13 mm in easy stages of course.

Then with your bandsaw, cut off 3 mm slices from the board starting on the side you made the cut. this will separate a stack of circles from the board. If you dont have a bandsaw use your tablesaw but make sure the offcut side where the circles fall free is not between the blade and the fence.
Personally I would use the bandsaw given the choice.

I hope that is understandable

Cheers

Doug

PS: I just realised you are also asking about the circular hole to set the inlay into, not just the circular inlays themselves.

Have a look here: http://woodgears.ca/pantograph/index.html before you proceed any further. Follow the links on that page and you will see the best way to do it.

[Christos]

My thoughts are using a hand held router with the appropriate bushings and templates.

[Chris Parks]

Only 3mm thick? I would put a cutter like in a mortice gauge at the end of a length of timber, put a pivot at the other end and make repetitive circles until you go through. MDF would do it easy, iron bark would be a different thing so the timber will dictate the method. At 40mm you could most probably use the beam of a cutting gauge to do the job.

[Dengue]

Thanks for this info guys. The timber is pretty hard, so will go with the router and template. Worked out i can cut the 40mm timber circles ( then slice them off on the bandsaw) , and then cut the circular groove with a single 64mm hole in an MDF template with a mixture of template guides and various router bits.

[rrich]

I don't know if this would work for you.

The clothes rod in a closet is about 40MM. Here we can get cheap ones (fir) and maple, for a bit more. They are probably available at Bunnings. If you can live with the end grain showing this may be an inexpensive solution. Slice off as many 3MM pieces that you need.

Also, put a bolt through a 19MM piece of timber and then glue several more pieces of 19MM timber to the first. Use your band saw to trim the corners off the glue up. (Make it into an octagon)

Chuck up the bolt in your drill press and with coarse sand paper trim the glue up down to about 40MM. Use your band saw to slice off the 3MM that you need. This method will give you face grain.

[Smirkin]

The neatest and quite possibly the safest way to do this is with the help from someone with a CNC router.

All it would take is a few minutes with the software to design the shape and size required, mount the material in the machine and cut away. The whole job would take very little time. There are a lot of CNC hobbyists out there. Just do a request on the CNC forum.

Craig



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[Smirkin]

I hope this does not offend the woodwork purists.