We have an oval mirror in the bath room and my wife would like it to have an oval frame for it. This seems like an "easy" do-it-yourself project.
While I have a general idea of how you would construct an oval frame, can someone give me some specific guidance or point me to a site that shows specifics.
Lay the mirror on large piece of cardboard. Trace it. Cut out the cardboard. Place the cardboard cutout on another large piece of cardboard. Trace it again, this time using a compass or dividers set to the width of the frame minus the width of the rebate on the back of the frame that will hold the mirror. Cut this out and use it as a template for the outside edge of the frame. Set your dividers to the width of the frame and use that to mark the inside edge of the frame. Cut out the center.
Smooth and sand the inner and outer edges, then use a router to cut a rebate in the back of the frame to hold the mirror.
If you don't have a board wide enough, end glue (with lap joints) stock in a rough oval and use the template to refine it.
I made an oval frame in more or less that same manner as shown in the following video.
Start with a rectangle with mitered corners, adding splines if desired. Cut the inside oval, rout your rabbet, cut the outside oval and add to profiles of your choice.
Here's one way to do it.
Holy crap! There's one guy who *really* needs a SawStop! Sheesh!
OP: I asked for help in making an oval frame, not for bad examples using badly designed power tool. It was amazing that he still had all his parts.
On looking at some video that I found and what has been presented, my concern was making putting the sides together.
This is a rather large mirror with the major axis about 30 inches and the minor axis about 20 inches. To find a board 20+ inches, is going to be difficult.
My thoughts was to glue up pieces is the approximate shape of the oval and then cut the oval from that. There is one video where the working shape is a lay up of small triangles, to give the approximate shape of the oval and another where he makes the approximate shape out of rhomboids and glues them together.
May be I am over thinking the problem but I was looking for the best lay out using standard stock material and the angles to make the cuts. (it is 50 years since I have had geometry.)
Maybe the best way is trial and error.
Note--that appears to be a third-world commercial shop (Vietnam I believe). Tools aren't badly designed, they're cobbled from what's available. Same idea as the gym in Angola about halfway down this page
Doesn't have to be 20 inches. Doesn't even have to be 10 inches.
Get a piece of foamcore board at Staples (or posterboard, but foamcore is easier to work with--20x30 sheet is around 3 bucks) and if you dont have one a 9mm (they come 9 and 18, for this you want the narrow one) snap-blade knife (same source) and again if you don't have one a good straight-edge (hardware store, art supply store, or fabric shop). Lay out a quarter of the ellipse on the foamcore and cut it out. Now put a straightedge on that and measure across. You'll find that you need far less width than you think. And of course you can make 8 segments or 16 segments or however many float your boat.
Both of those work.
Foamcore is your friend. If you want to be high-tech Fusion 360 will let you try things out on the PC screen and it's free for non-commercial use--I think there's still a free Sketch-Up but haven't used it in ages. To perform this task though there's quite a lot of learning-curve on either.
I have actually done this before. You want as many, with the grain boards as possible. Build a straight board frame that will accommodate the mirror. Then use the mirror as a guide to mark the oval.
OK but it's still surprising he has all his parts. One kickback and he may lose an important one. It gets worse from there. Way worse.
Hmmm. How many decades has it been since I've read a National Geographic?
Or this with an ellipse jig or a couple of pieces of string:
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