wooden stump dishing form?

[Baron Conal]

Been thinking about making a wooden stump
dishing form....

How deep should the dish be for a general purpose
dish?

What diameter dish for same?


thanks in advance!

[Uryen]

About the same radius as what you want from your piece.
The one I use the most is about 4"-5" in diameter and about 1" deep. But you can use whatever feels most comfortable to you.

[Baron Conal]

I'd be making spaulders first ( 14th Century-ish generic )

[Sean Powell]

For general purpose spaulders I like the 7.25" diameter bowl that I got with my circular saw. For anything deeper then that or for anything with a variable curve I prefer a small diameter very deep hole. One I cut with a 1" speed bore and the other with a hole saw for door-knobs and a chisel. You don't HAVE to push the metal until it bottoms out and a smaller diameter dish gives you more control and reduced risk of edge wrinkles at the cost of requireing higher forces.

YMMV, Sean

[Patrick Marshall]

I recently came acroos an old welding tank and had a friend cop it down and weld it to a piece of plate for a dishing form. If you do something like this it works great but be sure to fill the form with sand because it sure does ring like hell when you strike it and also use a soft faced hammer, steel against steel is load.

Pat Marshall

[Baron Conal]

For general purpose spaulders I like the 7.25" diameter bowl that I got with my circular saw.

YMMV, Sean

What did you learn to not do while making
the dish with your circular saw?

[sha-ul]

I recently came acroos an old welding tank and had a friend cop it down and weld it to a piece of plate for a dishing form. If you do something like this it works great but be sure to fill the form with sand because it sure does ring like hell when you strike it and also use a soft faced hammer, steel against steel is load.

Pat Marshall

can you turn it on its side, drill a 1/2" or so hole fill it up with DRY sand or shot & either plug or weld the hole shut?

[Sean Powell]

For general purpose spaulders I like the 7.25" diameter bowl that I got with my circular saw.

YMMV, Sean

What did you learn to not do while making
the dish with your circular saw?

I learned to not loose any fingers but thankfully I didn't need to learn that the hard way.

I marked a spot on the stump with a circle from a paint can or chinese food container. I found the center and divided the circle into 16ths with a ruler. I set the saw to the right location and standing to the side so I could see the blade work but not be in-line if it kicked. I made multiple plunge cuts. Up to 8th went fairly well but the saw wanted to bind at 16th occasionally so I took a chisel and blew out the thin section near the middle. Then I cut 16ths and maybe repeated until 32nds. Eventually I chiseled out a lot of the standing remains and then rocked the saw carefully through the hole. To me this is safer then doing it with an angle-grinder and the chain-saw blade atachment because I have both hands on the tool and a snap-shut safety guard which the angle-grinder dosn't have.

Even that wasn't smooth enough so I used a heavy ball-peen to beat certain scragly reminants flat and did some light sanding. It probably took an hour but It was a long time ago and I sure didn't rush as I was concerned with safety.

Surprisingly though, I rarly use it. I've done 3 valgrad-6 kits lately. I dish the bands in a shallow spot a little bigger then a quarter or a slot cut 2 saw-blades wide for creases. Using the big dish would put in too much curve and not nearly enough dish to do the job right. When I do knees or elbows I use a hole that started 1.5" in diameter and the edge was rounded with a 1/4" round over bit in the router (and subsequent hammering) I find it gives me more control over where the dishing occurs (only moves right under the hammer) and I never wory about maxing out how deep the dish can go.

Sean