Machining strategy advice needed

[myxpykalix]

Ok first, forgive my artistic abilities. I made a 6" diameter column that I want to make some type of round capital to go on top of. The top picture is right side up bottom is upside down.

It needs to be 8+ inches diameter to look good and to house a light in the top. I don't have clearance on my indexer to be able to mill this like you would a bowl on a lathe so i need to figure out a way to mill this flat on the table.
Can anyone give me advice on how i would machine this in rough/finish passes or types of bits to use?
It doesn't have to be exactly like this but it does need to be round. Does anyone have any dxf's or (whatever) of any round capitals they could share? I need to make the top and inside hollow because i'm going to be using it as a sconce and place a light inside. THANKS!
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[bleeth]

Cut 3 discs, each one machined separately-Cut them out with the bot and do the edges on a router table. Then put them together. I did columns for a table base that way that were 12" in diameter and 20" high.

[myxpykalix]

So you think just gluing 4 pieces in a square, cut them out round then take them to the router table and use a large roundover bit is the simpliest solution? (for each level).
I can see that for the bottom 2 round donut shaped pieces but the top i want to flare out for the lampshade part of it.

[ed_lang]

Use a Roman Ogee bit or some other profile bit in the router table to profile the outside of the circles. You can drill index holes in the parts for alignment on the ShopBot. That way you can align all the disks exactly as they need to be.

[bleeth]

The flare can be done on the router with a large core box bit. You can also program that on the bot. Depending on the wood species, I would pick up a plank wide enough to just cut my layers and then do my assembly.

[andre]

or a verticle raised panel bit

[myxpykalix]

Here is what i've done so far, but still stuck on how to achieve making basically a turned bowl on the table on the bot. Plus being able to hog out the inside and how to program those cuts around a outside and inside diameter has me confused. Any suggestions?

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[bill.young]

You can use the Extruder Virtual Tool to create toolpaths for odd-shaped profiles that you can't match bit shapes to. If the inside cutout has to be shaped like that it would require 2 Extruder files with the blank flipped over once, but if you just need a hole you could use one of the ShopBot's circle commands to cut out the middle or add the inside cutoff to the Extruder profile.

The Extruder's available in ShopBot Labs and also installed in the newest beta software.


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