rounding over edges

[zimmerstutzen]

Last year I made a few small surf board ornaments.  very simple flat surf boards out of lath.  I sanded the edges round and painted them up.  Sanding was a long process.  I use a router table to round over edges on big stuff.  Is there a little router table like for a dremel? My ornaments are only 3.5 inches long.  A full size router would likely suck in the wood and take some finger tips when working something that small.

[ChelCass]

They do make compact routers, not sure if this would work for you.  Have you tried using a Dremel type sander?  Also I picked up a mini sander that works really well maybe something like that would work for you.  Bought it off Amazon for around 47.00.

[Peter N White]

Dremel make a router table but Stewmac make a more solid one. 

[Scrappile]

You do not really need to buy Stewmac's real expensive plunge router base.  You can purchase their cheaper stationary router base and convert it to a plunge base. Which I have,  Couple springs and 4 nuts and you are good to go.  Check out Rockytime's thread.  He not only told me about this but insisted on sending me the few parts required to do it.  That is the kind of guy Rockytime was, R.I.P. your are really missed by us that had the honor of knowing you on this forum.  Now I am not the kind of guy that is going to send the parts but I am showing you how he did it!

 

[Ctutor]

Amazon has several rotary drills with flexible hand pieces and tons of attachments including sanding drums.  The wen is about $19.00 work very nicely for small items

[Dan]

Just curious, what is the thickness of the wood you use for the surf boards? 

[OCtoolguy]

58 minutes ago, Scrappile said:

You do not really need to buy Stewmac's real expensive plunge router base.  You can purchase their cheaper stationary router base and convert it to a plunge base. Which I have,  Couple springs and 4 nuts and you are good to go.  Check out Rockytime's thread.  He not only told me about this but insisted on sending me the few parts required to do it.  That is the kind of guy Rockytime was, R.I.P. your are really missed by us that had the honor of knowing you on this forum.  Now I am not the kind of guy that is going to send the parts but I am showing you how he did it!

 

Through the generosity of Les's wife Faye, I now have his Stewmac base that you are speaking about. I hold it in my hands and it thrills me to know that he held it also. I dearly miss him.

[BadBob]

I have a Veritas plunge base for my Dremel that I mount upside down in my vise when I want to use my 1/8-inch round-over bit.  It would be simple to mount this to a piece of acrylic that you could clamp to your bench.

When using 1/4-shank bits, I also mount my small router upside down in my vice.

I have a shaper and a Shopsmith if I want to do anything large that needs support.

 

[Dak0ta52]

I have the Dremel plunge router attachment as well as a regular router table. Because of the speed of the bit in either of these tools, I would be hesitant on using them on anything as small of a piece as you mentioned. While these tools are designed to rip out chunks of wood, a sanding tool is designed to remove material in layers. I would much rather put a bandaid on a rash where skin had been removed than to hit the emergency room  to receive stitches. I would recommend a machine for sanding. If you want to remove material a little faster, use a heavier grit. Just my two cents!

[Bill WIlson]

I've never tried one of these (deburring tool) on wood, but they perform a similar function on metal.  I wonder if this would work?

 

 

[Sycamore67]

I assume the lath is 1/4 or 5/16" thick.  I would not even attempt to use a router with such a small pieces.  it is too difficult to safely hold small pieces.  I would use a Mac Mop or similar or sanding mop to ease the edges.

[Wichman]

I have both the Dremel plunge router base and the Dremel bench top router table. The router table is ehh, okay. The clamps to mount the router are kinda clunky, so if you choose this, get a second Dremel and just leave it in the table. The only problem I had with using it as a router was the collect was worn out and I ruined a couple of pieces before I figured out what was wrong.

   The Dremel is still a dangerous tool, 40,000 rmp gives no reaction time at all, by the time your brain realizes anything is wrong the damage is already done.

I would give a router sled a shot, as least look at the option. Maybe scale a sled down for the Dremel. 
Remember, the Dremel is a light duty tool.

Link to a router sled:

 

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Wichman
spelling

[BadBob]

On 7/17/2023 at 3:30 PM, zimmerstutzen said:

Is there a little router table like for a dremel?

Yes, there is. Dremel makes one. It is small and made of plastic. I don't have one.

I would not have any issue routing small parts with a 1/8-inch round over or even 1/4-inch, especially the size of a Christmas ornament.

There are many ways to hold a small part for routing if you're uncomfortable using your hands. For example, you can mount the small part on a piece of clear acrylic with double-sided tape or build a jig with some toggle clamps to hold the part if it isn't too small.

I don't use my Dremel for rounding over small parts often because I can do it with a Japanese finger file or a coarse fingernail file faster than I can set up the router and I almost always need to sand after routing.

 

 

 

 

[zimmerstutzen]

thanks.  I am going to try the full size router table with a 1/8 round over.  I already have 30 cut out.  I'll sand them smooth first where I had some issues with the scroll saw. then round over and some light final sanding.     Rub them down with 2 coats of wipe on poly and then paint and stripe.  I may be sharing a booth with another crafter at a Beach Resort Christmas market in late November.  Need to build up some inventory.