Official Luthiers Forum!

I've got a dremel plunge router base with a circle cutting attachment. Unfortunately, the minimum radius of the circle it can cut is about 2 3/8" (about 4 3/4" diameter). I'm wondering if anyone has attempted any kind of modification to enable it to cut smaller diameter circles. My instinct is to just drill a hole in the clear plastic base at the radius I want and use that for the new pivot point. Not what you'd call adjustable, though.

Really - with my Stew-Mac Dremel base I cut out 4" and smaller sound holes all the time.

Mine is put away now, so I cannot describe exactly, but I drilled a hole in one of the rods for the fence and put a trammel point in it. I cut the center circle out of a classical top, which must be smaller than what you are doing.

Here's a pic of it to help illustrate what I'm talking about:

Sorry my friend I misread your post and thought that you had the Stew-Mac Dremel router base and not he Dremel router base. My apologies.

I spoke too soon when I said mine was put away. I have it out to trim the parrot's beak. Anyway, my base was the cheap one that came with it from Dremel, and it is small enough to not interfere with the radius. I am not familiar with yours, but I think most jigs I have seen replace the base plate with something that has a home made adjustable arm, rather than drilling holes in the base for a pin.

A bit of modification to the base will get you where you want to go. You'll need to move the pin closer to the dremel, so you'll need to add a piece with a new pin in between the base and part holding the pin now and you'll need to cut an access hole for that part to slide into. A picture might make more sense.

Apologies to whomever I stole this picture from in the first place.

_________________
Aoibeann

http://www.mytoolstore.com/dremel/678.html

Check out this site. For $11 you cannot beat thie price.

$11 but trust me you don't want to use it the platform is unstable and flexes under the load of the dremel. Good enough for simple hobby work but you can not cut accurate concentric circles as needed for rosettes and such.

Ditto to MichaelP's comment on the accuracy (not) of the Dremel circle cutter. I had consistent problems with it and changed to a modified base on a laminate trimmer with better results. I do not have the circle cutter attachment that Stew-Mac sells but will try a friend,s in another week to see if it is the circle cutter attachment or the Dremel that makes the difference.

_________________
GEO
perpetual beginner