Making Circles

  Not to long ago one of the members of our church was trying to come up with ways to raise funds for this year's Vacation Bible School.   One of his ideas was to build a "Prayer Well".   It is something like a wishing well only in this case you would throw in your change and say a little prayer.  
  He brought this scrap piece of plastic culvert over to my shop.   This piece was left over from a highway project and was 24 inches across.  His thought was that I could turn that into a wishing well somehow.   (After he left, I threw a little change into the culvert piece and said a prayer.    When I opened my eyes, the culvert was still there.   Hmmm.)

  So far starters, I cut a round circle using my jig saw out of some scrap 3/4 inch chip board that I had laying around.     My intent was to use this circle as a bottom to the well.   I drew a perfect circle and I tried to cut as carefully as possible.  When done my circle was good but not the show piece I wanted to display for all the congregational members to see.   (I was already regretting that I volunteered to do this task.)  

   I had seen this jig pictured in a wood catalog where one could use his router connected to this jig to cut perfect circles.   First I was thinking that I should order one until I saw the price.   Then I was thinking that I should just try to make one out of some 1/2 inch scrap birch plywood that I had laying around.  

    I drilled several holes down the middle one inch apart on one end.   Then I drilled a larger hole on the other end.   From there I mounted my router with a 1/4 inch cutting bit on the other end.    I stuck the router to this 1/2 inch board using two sided carpet tape.  I have found that this carpet tape holds well yet gives you a chance to separate the router from the jig without hurting the wood or the router base.

This is a bottom view of my little homemade jig.   I would like to say that I thought this up myself, but if you Google "circle cutting jigs" you can find ideas much like the one I built here.  (Maybe even better ones than this.)

   The picture to the right shows my first circle cut.   That did turn out nice.    I just had to figure out what my radius should be and drill a hole in the middle of the board, put a small bolt through my jig and through the hole in the board.   Turn on the router and drop the bit into the wood and gently push the router around.    It has nowhere else to go.

     I changed the dimension on my jig and made another circle cut.      This piece would be used to mount on the top of the culvert piece.  I went ahead and used my first original chip board piece for the bottom.   (Do you think  I would waste a piece of wood?  Even chip board?)

     I made a cross with the words prayer well and mounted it on the inside of the well.  The youth of our church painted the outside of the well.  (I painted the inside.   That gave me a chance to cover up some of the imperfections of my first circle cut.)

     The church raised a little over $50.00 in change with this idea.    The well got a late start this year and there are plans to use it for future fund raisers.  

     For me, I ended up with a nice little circle jig that I plan to use again.  Sometimes you make a jig to do a special task and you end up disappointed.   I like the way this one works and it is hanging up in the shop.    Just in case I need to cut some more circles some day.