Lathe-Router Jig

This was an interesting operation. Norm had a moderately sized round table top that he needed to dish out and then do some profiling on the rim. Although I don't think he's dished a top out before, he has certainly profiled a rim, and he usually uses a roundover bit with a pilot bearing to do it. One could even use a router table—either with the pilot bearing or by fashioning a fixture to position the top against the bit while it's turned by hand.

The method Norm chose was to mount the top to the lathe (with the head rotated outboard of the bed) and attach a fixture to the lathe which would allow a router to be passed along the top of the table at a consistent depth. Someone on one of the woodworking groups suggested that this method was not dissimilar to the large bowl turning technique used by Walt Koertge whom Norm visited in the Wooden Bowl episode (1410) several years ago.