[harrysin]

Hi guys and gals, I'm Harry from Perth Western Australia and am a long time student of Template Tom, anyone who doesn't know this name must be brand new to routing! These days I confine myself to small items such as jewellery and trinket boxes, clocks such as copies of French balloon clocks etc.

 

[template tom]

New to forum

Hi guys and gals, I'm Harry from Perth Western Australia and am a long time student of Template Tom, anyone who doesn't know this name must be brand new to routing! These days I confine myself to small items such as jewellery and trinket boxes, clocks such as copies of French balloon clocks etc.

Hi Harry
Great to hear from You Here is your Balloon Clock you made a few years ago
Tom

 

[harrysin]

Hi Harry
Great to hear from You Here is your Balloon Clock you made a few years ago
Tom

Hi Tom, here are a couple of pix of recent projects. Harry

 

[template tom]

Hi Tom, here are a couple of pix of recent projects. Harry

Great to see you are still keeping your hand in. We must get together as I have some new exciting projects for you.
Tom

 

[bobj3]

Very nice job Harry

I like the details and the care you went to to get that clean sharp look and the many hours you put in the sanding job , I blew the picture up and it's hard to see any errors at all and that's what most of us do when we make a project ,just trying to cover the errors ...with just a bit of wood filler but I don't see any in your project... NICE JOB....

Bj

Hi Tom, here are a couple of pix of recent projects. Harry

 

[harrysin]

I appreciate you're kind remarks,you were correct in not seeing any filler, I find that filler sticks out far more than an imperfection. Mistakes I make plenty of, for instance when making the cufflink box as a Christmas present for a good friend, I made the top then measured it and made the bottom, but when it came to assembly, the bottom was 20mm wider than the top! I had measured from the inside of the frame and cut the piece of Sheoak to that size. I was now faced with the problem of how to rectify matters, because of the mitred frame it wasn't possible to cut accross on the radial arm saw so I considered using jig saw, band saw, scroll saw etc. but non of these methods would leave a perfectly straight edge so I went back to my training under the master of the router, Tom O'donnell (template Tom) and decided that the router was the only way to solve this problem so I made the template shown in my posting to Tom and using a 40mm template guide and a 6mm cutter routed out the surplus material as also shown . By the way, I do measure several times but still make these mistakes, not surprising at 73 years of age.

 

[Mike]

Harry, you will find that Bob and Rick's "Simple is better" approach to routing makes a great deal of sense. Bob has been preaching for 25 years that the fewer measurments you need to take the better. He carries a rubber ruler to make his point. The jigs, set up bars and templates help reduce the number of measurements taken on a project and this keeps errors to a minimum. Welcome to the forums.

 

[mwm500]

Welcome to the forums. Very nice work. You had a good teacher. I've learned a lot on the the forums and watching Router Workshop on the Woodworking channel and really want to get more into router template work as I can see it offers a lot of possibilities. I think Tom's work with templates is great. I would like to hear how you went about making the clock.

Walt

 

[harrysin]

"French" balloon clock

Thanks Walt for you're interest in the clock, using Toms methods I designed and made two of the templates shown in pix, my original idea was to trim the sides and top on the radial arm saw, but when I mentioned this to Tom he very nearly had a heart attach!, the result was that HE designed the third jig for trimming using the router. The template for routing the body was simple to make as the shape is symetrical ie: the diameters of the head and waist are the same so starting with a vertical line up the centre and a line at right angles at a height to suit the centre of the face, it is a simple matter to draw the shape with a compass then drill center holes for the circle cutting jig. Next decide what size template guide is to be used on the router and repeat the drawing at this distance. I used a 30mm guide with a 10mm straight cutter. I read in a magazine some years ago that to decide the diameter of the clock, add 15mm all round to the size of clock to be used, in other words 30mm greater dia. than the movement. I'm sure all this will make more sense when Tom eventually releases a DVD course in plunge routing, 'till then have fun,Harry

 

[mwm500]

Harry, Thanks for the pics, looks pretty straight forward I was thinking about using a band saw to cut the outside shape then following behind with a template and flush trim bit, would hate to give Tom a heart attack though LOL. I really wish we used mm here in the states but hard to teach us old dogs new tricks.

Walt

 

[template tom]

Harry, Thanks for the pics, looks pretty straight forward I was thinking about using a band saw to cut the outside shape then following behind with a template and flush trim bit, would hate to give Tom a heart attack though LOL. I really wish we used mm here in the states but hard to teach us old dogs new tricks.

Walt

Hi Walt
As you can see I taught Harry well all those years ago (Good Boy)
One of the dissadvantages of trimming with the trimming cutter you are cutting the thickness of the material and uo will not produce the same finish
Tom

 

[harrysin]

Balloon clock

Please Walt, forget the bandsaw, make a template using a circle cutting jig, which doesn't have to be as elaborate as this one designed by you know who! Most woodworking books show such things starting with a simple strip of thin ply screwed to the base of router with a nail tapped through at the centre point of circle. I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, so I don't expect to see a pics of you're finished clock for a few weeks. Harry
Please let me know if attachment fails to arrive. H.