Rockler Circle Cutting Jig

Posted:  Friday, April 17, 2026 at 08:48 PM
Categories: Jigs

A friend of mine asked me to help him create a seating chart stand for his daughter's wedding; I'll probably write more about that project later as it had some cool challenges. The job required that we cut a 4x8 foot piece of plywood to 3 feet wide then cut an arc across the top. Here's a photo of the final product:

To cut the top arc, I needed a good circle cutting jig. I didn't want to make one, mostly because I'm often lazy and there were a lot of options available as commercial products. I decided to purchase the Rockler Circle Cutting Jig for Routers.

Rockler's Three Jig Options

Rockler offers multiple circle cutting jigs:

• Rockler Circle Cutting Jig for Routers
• Rockler Ellipse/Circle Cutting Jig for Routers
• Rockler Ellipse/Circle Cutting Jig for Compact Routers

For my project, I selected the first option in the list. I purchased the jig at my local Rockler store and, fortunately for me, it was on sale; retail price is $59.99US and I paid, I think,about $39US.

The ellipse/circle cutting jigs are cool (and interesting) because they allow you to cut both circles as well as ellipses, but since this was my first foray into circle/arc cutting, I didn't want to do anything complicated. I just wanted to be able to make an arc at the top of that board. I felt that jumping to the ellipse versions would make it more difficult for me to learn how to use them.

Jig Packaging

The jig ships in a flat pack which is basically a piece of thin cardboard with the instructions on the back, and a thin plastic cover holding the jig and accessories in place.

Using The Jig

Centering the Circle/Arc

The jig comes with a t-track assembly that you use to set the center of the circle/arc being cut. You must also screw in one of the included pins used to hold the jig in place in the center of the circle/arc.

For our project, I set the t-track at 18 inches. and I drilled a small hole on the back of the board 18 inches from the top and either side; this marks the center of the arc. I selected the back of the board for the hole because I didn't want the hole showing on the guest-facing side of the display.

Since I had a hole in the board, I selected the squared off pin as shown in the following figure. If I didn't want to drill a hole, I could have used the pointed pin either held down over a mark on the board or inserted in a small pilot hole.

Mounting the Router

The jig comes with three sets of pre-drilled holes that covers mounting many popular routers:

• Bosch 1617 series (fixed base only), 1618 Series (fixed base only), 1619 and 1619 EVS
• Dewalt DW616, DW618, and DW625
• Hitachi M12VC
• Makita 1100 series
• Porter-Cable 100, 690 series, 890 series, 7529, and 8529

Note: I didn't check for compatibility with my router first, I lucked out there since it was supported. I didn't find out until I got home with it and started assembling it. Double-check compatibility with your router before you purchase this jig.

The instructions are pretty clear on how to find the mounting holes for the router, as shown in the following figure (borrowed from the documentation). It did take me a little while to figure out exactly what the placement was for the router and to make sure I got the right holes.

Once I figure that out, I realized that I didn't want to have to refer to the docs every time I mounted my router to the jig. So, to make this easier on myself, I used a marker to mark the bolt positions for my particular router as shown in the following image.

What Rockler should have done was color code the holes (with silkscreen circles, for example) so I didn't have to markup the jig for my router.

Cutting The Arc

I used a plunge router and took multiple passes at the cut. To do this any other way would abuse the router bit and potentially give you rough edges along the cut. If you're using a fixed-base router, plan on manually adjusting the router bit height to allow for multiple passes.

Cutting the arc was easy, but I cheated.

I didn't trust the t-track pin to stay in place as I made my passes with the router. I know you should be able to, especially with the hole I drilled for the pin, but I didn't trust it to stay in place. I knew that as soon as I started my cut, it would pop out and my cut would be all skewed. Fortunately for me, I was cutting from the back side of the board, so if I did make a mistake, it would remain hidden.

But, to make this even easier, and here's the cheat, I had my friend (the guy who wanted this thing) hold the pin in place as I made cuts. With that extra hand, I reduced the chance of the pin popping out of the hole and ruining the cut. The cut turned out perfect.

I regret that I have no photographs of this process; I thought I took some but I can't find them anywhere.

Conclusion

I was really intimidated by this whole process. I knew, even though the jig was very simple, that I'd have trouble making a clean arc cut and I'd have to fix my mistakes. I was wrong, setting up and using this jig was a breeze. The cut was perfect and I can't wait for an opportunity to cut another arc or circle with this jig.

Problems With This Product

The product has a problem though. Well, not the product but the product packing.

First of all, Rockler doesn't 'ship' documentation with the product except for the instructions on the back of the packaging. This means that you must keep the original packaging around (at more than 33 inches) for its user guide. You can also download a two page PDF of the back of the packaging and keep that around instead.

The product packaging is essentially designed so it can be used once (as you transport the product from the local Rockler store to your shop). As soon as you tear the plastic cover off the jig, you lose the ability to keep everything together using the original packaging.

This is an example of Rockler focusing on ease of packaging and product presentation instead of how purchasers will actually use and store the product.

The product includes the t-track assembly and pins as well as different length bolts (used to mount the router to the jig). When I'm done using it, I have to figure out how to:

1. Store the jig for future use (without it getting damaged in my shop).
2. Store the bolts, pins, and t-track assembly with the jig (I can't have them getting separated).
3. Store the 33 inch long back of the original packaging for I can remember how to use the jig the next time I want to cut an arc or circle.

If I can't accomplish all those goals, I will misplace one or more of the items and I can't use the jig again.

Epic fail here Rockler.

Rockler should consider how customers will store the product after they've torn the plastic cover off the cardboard packaging. You can't put it back without taping every side of it down (and even that wouldn't be stable).

What they should have done was deliver the jig in a reusable plastic enclosure that stores all of the product components. With this available at purchase time, I can pull the jig out of storage, use it to my heart's content, and put all the parts back into storage safely later.

Since I love this jig and knew I'd want to be able to use it again later, I had to build my own storage case for it which I describe in Creating a Slim Jig Storage Container

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