Easy Way To Make Wooden Discs

[Gotcha6]

I like mshel's idea too. I've got one of those but didn't think of it.:BangHead: The bit can be reversed so the waste is left either on the inside or the outside of the cut & it leaves a very clean hole. Probably much easier than the spring thingy & finding a spring with a left hand spiral so it doesn't try & unwind itself while in contact with the material being cut.

 

[Ozzie-x]

I like mshel's idea too. I've got one of those but didn't think of it.:BangHead: The bit can be reversed so the waste is left either on the inside or the outside of the cut & it leaves a very clean hole. Probably much easier than the spring thingy & finding a spring with a left hand spiral so it doesn't try & unwind itself while in contact with the material being cut.

I've always heard those things called fly cutters. That would be my choice especially for larger circles, anything over 2", or an exact size circle of any size. Fly cutters can be adjusted to make very acurate circle sizes of your choosing, whereas hole saws come in limited sizes. Like anything else, one of the secrets to success with these is to sharpen and hone the cutting edge. Fly cutters are drill press only and the drill press must be slowed way down, probably to the slowest speed (scary, scary :swoon The workpiece should also be clamped to the drillpress table for accuracy and safety, these things WILL take the wood away from you DAMHIKT[MOUSE]RUN[/MOUSE].

 

[JOAT]

Re: WORKS LIKE A CHARM - was Re: Easy Way To Make Wooden Discs

Tried it today. Ran a hole saw thru both ends of a piece of 1/2" plywood, about a foot long. Wound up not cutting quite as deep as I'd planned, so had to take more off with the planer than anticipted. And it worked like a charm when I finally got enough off to free the discs. No hopping, bouncing, or anything else, they just got cut loose and rode on out. Exactly as I had figured. MUCH faster than the "normal" way. I'll be doing discs this way in the future. I did get a picture, but don't know how to post it here, so it's stuck somewhere in the my shop photos section apparently. I might be able to figure out how to get the picture with my post, but I'm too tired to mess with it, and don't really care.

Here's my test results. This is the method I'll mostly be using from now on, 2" discs are just the right size as bases for my chess pieces, and for spacers when I use them for that.

I'd considered a spring, but just one more thing to keep track of, and I figure that at the best it'd leave marks on the disc.

I've got one of thosee adjustable cutters, works well enough, but takes too long. The hole saw and planer method works great and is quite fast. The slowest parts of the whole operation was adjusting the drillpress stop trying to get the holesaw 'almost' thru, and cranking down the planer. Next time I'll cut a test hole, then a test run thru the planer. That may take 2-3 tries before I get it right, then I can pump out a whole batch of discs in very little time at all. I'll need 32 discs as bases for one chess set, should be able to crank out that many in about five minutes or less easy. Speed woodworking.
:rotflm:

 

[McRabbet]

Re: WORKS LIKE A CHARM - was Re: Easy Way To Make Wooden Discs

I have the small Jasper Circle jig for my router and use the "almost through" technique to cut disks. I've also used it with a bowl cutter bit to carve out a recess in shelves for a wine bottle to stand in -- started with the outside cut and reduced the radius intil I had a very small pillar in the center which I removed with a chisel and then cleaned them up with sanding. This picture shows them after using the roundover bit to ease the edges of each shelf.

View image in gallery​

 

[Guy in Paradise]

I have used one of those circle cutters

and had good luck. As long as the cutter is sharp it works great. At first, it can be a little disconcerting to view the cutter spinning widely around, but it is no problem. Just ensure you piece is clamped down, as the cutter can put a lot of torque on the board as the depth increases during the cut. The cutter directions has recommended speeds, but they are on the slower range.