Circle Sanding Jig

Smooth disk edges with a spindle sander

Myriad methods abound for cutting circles. (See page 44 for a router trammel or the last issue for a bandsaw jig.) But whichever approach you take, it’s likely to require some clean-up sanding afterward. As with cutting, there’s more than one way to sand your circles—typically involving a jig attached to a disk or belt sander. But this jig is different; it attaches to an oscillating spindle sander and allows for incrementally advancing the work into the spindle without introducing divots.

In operation, your workpiece pivots on a pin at the inner end of a sliding bar while you rotate the disk against the sanding drum. At the outer end of the bar, a knurled knob allows fine adjustment for incremental sanding, having locked in the coarse-adjustment slide underneath the jig. My jig is sized to handle disks from 2" to 22" in diameter. If you need to sand larger-diameter work, simply alter the dimensions provided to lengthen the pivot bar, the deck, and the slide. Each additional inch increases the diameter capacity by 2".