Ellipse Like Sugar...

[Jim Becker]

Thanks. I am still unclear how to cut a perfect 90 on the ends of the aprons on the tsaw since there won't be a flat face. I guess I have to build a Cradle to hold it at the right angle. I really hate cutting and milling thin laminations for this kind of stuff, so I'm getting some bendable poplar from curvolutions. I will just put an ash veneer on the outside.

Jig-up to hold the workpiece(s) where they need to be to make your cut.

[Roger Feeley]

I've never tried this but I wonder...

We all know that you can make an elipse with two pins and a string. but two pins and a string would be too weak and stretchy with a router. I wonder if you could use a router with two bolts and some 1/16" aircraft control cable. That stuff just plain doesn't stretch. You would have to build an auxiliary base to act as sort of a pulley and the bolts would have to have pulley wheels around them too. The ends of the cable would have to be fixed to the router base so you wouldn't have to deal with a lump where the two ends join. It could work...

[Prashun Patel]

It seems that it would be too easy for the router to slip and ride into the ellipse. This might work well for cutting an elliptical hole, but I'm not sure it'd be that easy to control when cutting an elliptical 'plug'.

[David Epperson]

I've never tried this but I wonder...

We all know that you can make an elipse with two pins and a string. but two pins and a string would be too weak and stretchy with a router. I wonder if you could use a router with two bolts and some 1/16" aircraft control cable. That stuff just plain doesn't stretch. You would have to build an auxiliary base to act as sort of a pulley and the bolts would have to have pulley wheels around them too. The ends of the cable would have to be fixed to the router base so you wouldn't have to deal with a lump where the two ends join. It could work...

Tried it. The results were not pretty. Even with steel cable there was too much give in the set up and the router wants to get out of alignment. I ended up just building a set of slides and making an ellipse machine base. I set it up like a lazy susan and used in on my router table.

[glenn bradley]

http://zo-d.com/stuff/squares-and-me...n-ellipse.html

Cut out ply template, bandsaw to rough shape and route to finish ;-)

[Van Huskey]

Just cut a huge cone then slice out the ellipse you want... With a big enough bandsaw with a tilting table and your golden, as long as you have a big enough chunk of wood. See it is all about the bandsaw, just three cuts, no need to measure and draw and cut and shape and and and.

[Jim Underwood]

If you were nearby, I could cut an ellipse template with the CNC router for you... Of course the boss would want $$$ for it.

[Kenneth Speed]

Bill Huber's suggestion is a good one and I think it's worthwhile to learn or relearn that method. Using the framing square and pencils approach is also a good way to draw an oval. I think the Popular woodworking method is useful because one can use it to make small ovals such as drawer face inlays and paterae while the framing square method is the wrong scale for those things it works fine for table tops and the like. Why buy a when you're only rarely going to be making ovals?

Ken

[Prashun Patel]

I just finished the coffee table. Thanks for the help and suggestions. Learned a lot!!!

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...25#post1980625