[Ron]

  I have a question regarding what radius to use on the front vertical edges for a pair of AV-3's that I am presently building. It appears from several pictures that I have seen on Audio Circle of finished AV-3's cabinets that they have either a 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch radius on the front vertical edges. My plans are to round over the front vertical edges on my MDF cabinets and veneer the sides and front with a single sheet of cherry veneer. My question is which radius would be best, 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch? Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[Danny Richie]

Either will work.

3/4" does make it a little easier to roll the veneer around and looks a little better to me.

You can roll a good paper backed veneer around the 1/2" radius too if you roll it in the right direction.

[Ron]

 Thanks Danny for your help. I agree that a 3/4 inch radius would make it a little easier to work with, so that's the one I will use.

Ron

[tizeye]

Also, just FYI...
Depends upon you router.  If you have a router with a 1/4" shaft, they doun't sell a 3/4" roundover bit.  The 3/4 roundover hit only fits a 1/2" drive shaft router.  With the 1/4" shat virtually everywhere has a 1/2" roundover bit as the largest offered.  I found a 5/8 roundover bit at Sears which is what I used.

[Ron]

Tizeye - My router does use 1/2 inch bits. Since I have both 1/2 and 3/4 inch roundover bits and plan to use 10 mil,paper backed veneer to wrap the cabinets,my original question regarded which one would be the best to use. Danny's reply indicated that either size roundover bits could be used;however,the 3/4 inch would probably look the best which I agree. Presently plan to experiment with both size roundover bits first to see which one I like best.

[tizeye]

GREAT!
From the original post I wasn't certain which size router you had.  Unfortunately, I didn't know what to look for and bought what was on sale and ended up with the 1/4 drive/collet.  Glad to hear you didn't fall into that same trap.

[ecramer]

GREAT!
From the original post I wasn't certain which size router you had.  Unfortunately, I didn't know what to look for and bought what was on sale and ended up with the 1/4 drive/collet.  Glad to hear you didn't fall into that same trap.

Depending on what router  you bought you may be able to buy a 1/2 inch collet. Its handy to have both.

Ed

[Hank]

I almost always use a 3/4" Roundover bit.  If a DIY-er is going to build very many cabinets, I recommend buying a good powerful 1/2" collett router, preferable with dust collection facility built in.