Homemade Coil Skidplate

[Lesgold]

Good thinking GotAu.  The router is a valuable tool in the workshop. It’s an easy task to make simple jigs to cut perfect circles in timber materials. Once the jig is made, the rest is relatively simple. Thanks for posting another solution to the problem. 👍👍👍

[Lesgold]

If you were considering making your own skid plates, the plug and ring moulds can be made using a router as GotAu suggested. I knocked up a simple circle cutter to show how I would approach it. If the baseplate of the router is removed, a thin piece of plywood or MDF can be attached using the screws removed from the router base. The black baseplate can be used as a template to drill the holes required. Screws need to be countersunk below the surface of the new baseplate.

A small, straight cutter of about 6mm diameter is inserted into the router and a hole is drilled at the appropriate point on the new baseplate to give the diameter required for the ring mould. This needs to be accurate and may require a couple of attempts before the exact precision is achieved. The pivot is attached using a screw and the router then can only move in a circular motion. The router depth is set to about 10 mm and the circular slot is cut.

A jig saw then cuts out most of the waste using the centre of the router cut as a guide. A flush trim bit is then inserted into the router to clean up the remainder of the ring.

the ring is then perfectly circular in shape and if accurately sized, will perform the task required. A piece of abrasive paper is used to clean up any burrs.

The plug as made using the same method but a different centre is required. Measurements need to be taken from the other side of the router cutter when calculating distances.

The rest of the construction process is then as what was described earlier. Hope this is of some help to those wanting to play with this process.