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I’m building an unusual custom home with many radius walls (3’5″, 4’5″, 8’0″, 13’5″, 17′, 56′, 92′, 288′).
Does anybody have suggestions on how to cut the plates for these walls? For the tighter radius, I’ve used a circular with every other tooth bent out in the opposite direction, increasing the kerf enough to make the curve. I’ve also used a sawzall and jig saw, with moderate results. I’d like to get a nice, clean (almost machine-like) cut.
I’ve also kerfed a 2×4 every few inches to enable the bend- this works OK in some situations, but I’d prefer to make the plate out of 1-1/8″ plywood, cut on radius with a good cutting technique. Any suggestions?
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Use a router. Attach it to a long strip of 1/4" plywood and nail the other end to your pivot point. And expect a LOT of waste.
*Carl,
View Image © 1999-2000"The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it." Aristotle
*hey, joe.... your site is looking better and better....nice work....
*Carl,I bought a 6' length of 1/8"x3/4" aluminum strip. Filed the end down narrowto fit tightly through the shoe of my Bosch jigsaw where the rip fencenormally fits, with a little room on each side for fine adjustment to radiuslength. Then, I drilled holes for pivot points at the radius lengths neededdown the length of the strip. I used two 2x8's to fashion jig platform in a"T" shape with the pivot point about 1/3 the way up from the bottom of the"T". The top of the "T" gives area to screw the workpiece to afteralignment. I've built a 9' wide barrell vault for the main entry, radiusedwindow framing for the front bent glass windows, and 2x4 plates for another10' radius exterior wall. This is all done on my house currently underconstruction, as the framers were unfamiliar with this type of constructionand they were running short on time, I volunteered to do these areas. Thejig works great, takes a little patience to set up, but once you've made acut, it becomes easy and multiple cuts of different radii become easy. Nice,machine looking cuts, although 2x4's go very slow plywood and 1x goes reallyslick... one handed cuts. I'll try to send a pic of the jig later, here's apic of the house. Hope I've been of some help, if you run into somethingdifferent I'd be interested to see it. I'll never grow out of thiscurved/circular thing.Bill Smith(Pic sent directly to Carl to avoid flames from Gabe)
*Carl, Joe's da man, thats the way we do our plates for circle stair walls, if the radius isn't to tight you can cut your plywood with a small power saw, (6" or so) good luck!
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We had a lot of these in our house. Used a method almost identical to what Joe described, except for plaster over structo-lite rather than joint compound. Cut radii w/ sawzall. One guy did it all and got better and better. Used a length of electrical conduit w/ a nail hole for a pivot point, and a notch for a pencil to draw the curves more precisely than w/ string.
Since then have seen metal track that bends to any curve. Can't find the one reference, but here's another: http://br-metal.com/products.htm
You can even bend your own: http://www.trackbender.com/tbstart.html
For us this would have been easier & cheaper than cutting out of plywood--lots of labor and waste.
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I'm building an unusual custom home with many radius walls (3'5", 4'5", 8'0", 13'5", 17', 56', 92', 288').
Does anybody have suggestions on how to cut the plates for these walls? For the tighter radius, I've used a circular with every other tooth bent out in the opposite direction, increasing the kerf enough to make the curve. I've also used a sawzall and jig saw, with moderate results. I'd like to get a nice, clean (almost machine-like) cut.
I've also kerfed a 2x4 every few inches to enable the bend- this works OK in some situations, but I'd prefer to make the plate out of 1-1/8" plywood, cut on radius with a good cutting technique. Any suggestions?
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lots of waste lots of cuts
layout your radius on your ply then just cut it about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch deep at a time,reversing direction with each cut. I can usually make it look machine cut this way.
lots of waste lots of cuts
jim