Thread: How to carve/route a "half egg" oval shape?

Router, guide bushing, and elliptical template. The elliptical template should be oversize by half the diameter of the bushing [minus half the diameter of the router bit].

The most accurate way to lay out the ellipse is with two brads, a loop of string, and a pencil. Google is your friend.

Least accurate is a four-center isometric circle. Again, Google is your friend.

In between is CAD layout. CAD ellipses are usually multi-center versions of the isometric, but with more centers of curvature.

Cut the template slightly undersize (with scroll saw or coping saw), and sand to final dimension. Make the extent of the template material large enough to clamp to the workpiece, with the clamps clearing the router base. Hot-melt glue, in locations to ease removal, is an alternate method of "clamping."

If the final product is too small for this procedure, carve the oval before cutting the final product dimensions. If this isn't feasible, attach the workpiece, and surrounding material of the same thickness, to a base board to support the router and the template.

Cheers,
Joe

Would you like to mail the wood up here & I'll cnc rout it?
What's it for?

Originally Posted by Stewey

Would you like to mail the wood up here & I'll cnc rout it?
What's it for?

Thanks for the offer.

It's for guitar making, I was trying to get fancy with something. I ended out making a template out of a wedge shaped piece of hardwood so that the route gets more shallow as the template gets thicker. It's not exact egg shaped but will do for my purpose.

Cheers