Cut Curved Parts of Feet

Yesterday I picked up some 3" inner diameter PVC pipe from Lowe's. Today I went over to my friend Kelvin's, to have the curved part of the outer feet cut on his band saw. The A&A foot shells provide some very thin styrene for this, but I want to use the thicker material that the PVC pipe provides (0.25").

The pipe was originally almost 10 feet long(!), so first I needed to cut it down to be just a little longer than the foot shells.



For the cut on the band saw, we needed to make sure that the cut was right through the center of the pipe, and that the pipe did not rotate at all, as it was being fed. Kelvin came up with the clever idea of hot gluing a small piece of wood to the outside of the pipe, that rides along the top of the fence as the work is fed through the band saw.



The blade is indeed cutting right through the center of the pipe, and Kelvin's wooden block assures that the pipe doesn't rotate. Perfect!




Now, the easy part, cutting the half-pipe section into quarter sections. No rotation to worry about here, just rest the pipe face down, center the blade, and start cutting.



The sections turned out great!



I didn't have time to work with them, but they'll get glued in soon enough. I will need to sand down some of the outer foot shell to handle the 0.25" wall thickness, but that shouldn't be a problem.