Rotozip Circle Cutting Attachment

[Rocketmaniac]

This week I went to Lowe's and picked up the Circle Cutting Attachment for my Rotozip....... In my opinion, it is NOT worth the money....... 1. It is made of cheap, lite weight plastic.... Therefore, the Rotozip wiggles while you are trying to cutting the wood.......... 2. It is not accurate. I mean, I tried several times to use the built-in scale to cut centering rings for a 3.9" body tube...... I didn't even come close...... I got closer by measuring with a ruler between the part that pivots and the cutting bit.... But it still wasn't close enough......

To sum it up........ I would not recommend this device unless you have $24.95 that you don't want and need to spent it quick.......


(I'm going back to my circle cutting device for the drill press)

 

[jetra2]

Dangit!

I was sorta depending on this thing when I got around to building my bigger rockets (the 6" Big Daddies and the 8" QT rocket), since my circle cutter won't do anything that big.

Now I'm not going to waste my money on something that won't even work.

Anyone got any other suggestions? Cheaper suggestions preferred. Thanx.

Jason

 

[Stymye]

try the Jasper circle cutter ,it mounts to a plunge router.it's made from 1/4" lexan,,they come in different sizes .they were originaly designed to cut speaker box holes...

the roto zip is not beefy enough


https://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=365-250&DID=7

 

[eugenefl]

Originally posted by Rocketmaniac
This week I went to Lowe's and picked up the Circle Cutting Attachment for my Rotozip....... In my opinion, it is NOT worth the money.......

Randy, I agree 100%. The cheap plastic is overrun by the RotoZip's "bit wander". This tool certainly does not lend itself to any kind of accurate or precision cutting. Perhaps it might be OK for cutting large 6-7"+ circles, but even they would be rough so that they'd have to be corrected with a belt sander.

 

[jetra2]

What about someone using the "basic" design of the said circle cutter and making out of metal in a machine shop? Wouldn't that make the tool more accurate since it won't be prone to the problems ya'll described?

Jason

 

[rstaff3]

The router route seems to be the way to go. However, I have successfully used the Rotozip circle cutter for many rings, but it won't do anything smaller than ~3" (at least the older version I have). The circles aren't perfect, but after some minor sanding have been good enough for me. But then I don't spend much on infrastructure in the rocket dungeon (I already had the Rotozip for other uses)

 

[bobkrech]

To add to what jrocket posted.

https://home.flash.net/~jaspera/

This type of jig work well. The only problem is that they only cut to the nearest 1/16" so you have to oversize the od and under size the id and sand to fit.

Do a Google search on "circle cutting jigs" to get the best price.

Bob Krech

 

[Rocketmaniac]

The Jasper 400 looks cool....... How does it actually work? How do you change cutting diameters?

 

[Elapid]

the other day by cutting out plywood squares then cutting off the corners repeatedly. i finished them with a dremel sanding drum.

i'm a masochist tho.

 

[rabidsheeep]

uhh... my rotozips circle cutting thing is all metal... i did order the regular rotozip set, and somehow ended up with like the FWABOOSH-ly nice platinum edition... that might be it...

 

[Chuck Rudy]

Joel

You beat me to it. A router table (which could be any 3/4 inch piece of plywood) set up with radius holes and the router attached is *the* way to go. I have yet to find a job a rotozip can do which another tool can't do better. Add to that the horsepower of a router and the ability to use bits which won't break and stick in the wall at high speed.

Jerry O'Sullivan used to have a tutorial on just such a technique on www.vahpr.com but it's been down for a redo. Hopefully he'll have it back up soon.

 

[sandman]

jcrocket,

I have used that basic design for cutting large centering rings but insted of a router I have it set up for use with a small bandsaw. I got it from Norm Abrahms (PBS New Yankee Workshop).

It's much saffer than a router, and fewer wood chips!

Another meathod I have used is to mount a rough cut disc onto the bowl turning plate that comes with a lathe and just spin the disc cutting it with lathe tools.

sandman