Round Over on Small Circles

[Bob McBreen]

I am making some trim rings. 3" diameter circles of 3/8" maple. I'm looking for suggestions as to the best\safest way to round over the outside edge.

The current plan is to use the router table and making multiple passes while slowly increasing thr bit height.

[Lee Schierer]

Before you get started take a look at this in regard to using a router on curves.
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Mark the directions to route on your pieces with chalk. Even raising the bit small amounts at a time can still result in the router bit grabbing the grain and destroying your piece.

[Brian Tymchak]

I was recently thinking along the same lines and found an article on Woodsmith that might help.

https://www.woodsmith.com/article/shop-made-circular-router-guide/

[Bob McBreen]

Thank you Brian. That article really helped. Time to make a prototype.

[Aaron Liebling]

I did something similar and really enjoyed using a spokeshave. More relaxing and safe then using a router.

[Zachary Hoyt]

If the ring will have a hole in the middle I would use that to screw it to a 1.5" dowel, and then use that as a handle. Then you could do the routing in one pass. I do full depth routing of the outside of banjo armrests with a 1/4" roundover bit and with care to follow grain direction it goes fine.

[Larry Frank]

I have found that the Freud Quadra Cut router bits have less tear out.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Could they be turned on a lathe or drill press? If there will not be a hole a clever way to chuck them would be required.

[roger wiegand]

A lathe would be by far the easiest way. You could make the whole ring and have to hand sand the inside edge where you part it off or cut the rings by some other means and then make a chuck where you'd sandwich the ring between two truncated cones to round the outside edge. Depends whether the inside edge needs to be square or rounded.

[Rege Sullivan]

For routing any small pieces I'll usually use hot glue or double sided tape attach the work peice to some scrap to my fingers safely away from the bit.