A more direct route

[brucegseidner]

I think my router hates me. It was an orphan that I took in from a generous friends garage foundling home for excess and historically interesting tools. It is a pleasnt enough Craftsman router that cuts with out complaint but with low horsepower and required a more difident and incremental approch.

But, my skills figuring out how to make a template from a driver that does not have one is nothing short of a an exercise in frustration. I can't even figruse out how to change the bit. I can't find a way to lock the shfat to loosen the nut.

I was wondering if there are plastic tracer templates that would take the gueswok out ot this challenging task of cutting out a holw and countersinking the flange of basket surroud. Some one advised practicing with mdf and this was very very good advise.

I had hope to find more instruction youTube and the like.

[cuibono]

Try this:
http://www.parts-express.com/wizards...TOKEN=59759044

Sorry to hear of your frustration - learning a lot of diy stuff is tough at first - but becomes easy once you've done it a couple of times. These jigs help a lot.

[Francec]

I can't find a way to lock the shfat to loosen the nut.

Are there flats on the shaft? Can you post a pic?

Frank

[brucegseidner]

Two very kind responses to a dyslexic falling asleep with a laptop on his chest. Though the misspelling looks like the thumb text glyphs my kids put to one another texting.

The router shaft has no flat spot and there is no hole that I can find anywhere on the shaft for a pin to hold it from rotating. I am going to bring it into our local WoodCrafters Store. They are the shop teachers I would wished to have had in Jr. High. Instead we got the gym coaches who hated being there and whose greatest wood working project were the paddles with aerodynamic holes to accelerate the lick.

The jigs make circles and are a great help. But it is countersinking the basket contours that is hard. The box is going to be painted so I filled in the places where I was drawing outside the actual lines of the basket for a flush surface. But unless there are some templates for the irregular shape of these baskets, I can't think of a way to do it. It seems a bit dangerous to the driver to run the router around the physical edge of the basket as a guide. Other than developing skill to cut inside the line is there another remedy?

[Dr.EM]

What shape driver is it? Is it the square with rounded corners type? I have been trying to countersink this tweeter:

http://www.swanspeaker.com/product/htm/view.asp?id=16

which is a geometric nightmare! I managed to remove the faceplate from the element though and use it as my guide.

For a rounded corners driver you should make a square template and a circle template of appropriate size from thin board and layer them on top of each other with glue. You'll need to make it oversized then use the router with a guide busing to cut the recess. This is what I'd suggest anyhow. It might be another awkward shape though!

[brucegseidner]

It is what I feared. There is no Easter Bunny and there is no substitute for experience and skill.

I had not thought of building up a template but I have a bunch of 1/4" MDF from some other projects that I can sacrifice until I get it right.

I also plan to use a paint-able caulk that I can cover my mistakes with.

[John Sheerin]

The 'easter bunny' is a cnc router. Make all the complicated shapes you want:



The downside is the cost, but it still takes skill to run it - just a different kind.

[ChrisA]

Originally posted by brucegseidner
It is what I feared. There is no Easter Bunny and there is no substitute for experience and skill.

I had not thought of building up a template but I have a bunch of 1/4" MDF from some other projects that I can sacrifice until I get it right.

I also plan to use a paint-able caulk that I can cover my mistakes with.

"Bondo". The stuff they use at the auto body shop is the best if you intend to paint. It cures very fast to a hard sandable form.

About making a counter sink vs. a cutout. The process is identical. Except in the case of the counter sink you set the depth of the router bit to less than the thickness of the wood. Note that ball bearing router follower bits come with the ball bearing either on top or bottom. For the counter sink you want the template and the ball bearing on the top.

Bondo is also good to have around when making templates. You can use it to pull a mold off a part. (wrap the part in plastic first.) or to fix a mistake in the template.

The key to using a router is to NEVER use it free hand. All the work is in template making but you can make the template out of cheap Masonite and bondo. Actually that 1/4" MDF would be perfect for template making. Once you have a good template cutting a hole with a surrounding counter sync is very un-eventful.

[brucegseidner]

That is interesting. So you use a clump of saran wrap covered bondo to make a mold of the driver?

This is then fixed onto Masonite and cut out.

Question:

How do you cut the bondo and or the masonite? with an x-acto blade or smaller easier to control dremel or something?

Why doesn't the router just rip through the template? How is one guided by a template that a router could easily modify and cut up?

I think I may be missing something.

[trusound]

it's very simple...

you can go about this 2 ways..

if you plan on painting.. you can always router out the driver hole and the lip for the baffle for the speaker.. drill you holes for t-nuts.. glue in your t-nuts.. tape your speaker off.. apply a little vaseline as a mold release agent.. and place duraglass not bondo into the area you want to fill... let dry and then block sand..

if you want to go the purest route.. router out a hole in 1/4 or 1/2 mdf with the outer demension of your driver.. tap off your driver..duraglass.. etc.. now you have a pefect template of your driver.. then transfer that shape using a template bit onto your baffle