Circle Template

Making a Template to Cut Circles Around Conical and Spherical Objects

Inspiration

On my latest project, I am having to cut circles around some conical objects.  I usually just use a plastic template, I purchased my templates at Hobby Lobby, but I had to do several for this project.  I decided to make a template of my own that is custom made for this project and is more rigid than the templates.

Materials

For this project, I used a piece of quarter inch pvc strip, about 1.5 inches wide and about 6 inches long, a steel six inch ruler, a pencil, a Prismacolor pen, drill, and drill bits.

Procedure

 This picture shows the materials I used for this project.  The plastic green sheet with the circles cut out is a template.  In trying to scribe or etch lines around conical objects, it is difficult to hold the template while scribing, so I wanted to make something that was more rigid.

 It is difficult to see, but I have drawn a line splitting the sheet of pvc in two.

 Here I have drilled out the holes that I need.  It is difficult to see, but I marked the diameter of each hole above and to the left of the hole.  The pvc I used may be too soft for most projects, as the drill tends to travel when cutting the holes, but it will be fine for this project.  I left a gap in my template because I did not have a certain diameter drill bit which I will add later.







As you can see, I can take a conical object and, using a scribe, etch a line around the object.  The yellow piece I have is a toy cone for a construction set and is just used to show how it would work.