[Jacques Reed]

My thanks to you all, Graeme, Mike, Jonathan, David, Tony and Hanno,

Your thoughts and ideas are most appreciated. Always good to get different ideas especially when it comes to safety. Most of us are keen amateurs so we don't always have the years of a metal working trade behind us to know all the risks. Much better to take a bit more time and a bit of fiddling around but do it safely.

I had originally considered cutting it out with my Ryobi sabre saw but I have found the blade wanders by 1-2 mm each side of the centre line. This is why the lathe method came to mind. The saw is relatively new and upon inspection I found the blade and holder can be wiggled 1-2 mm each side of the centre position. I found this out when I ripped a sheet of plywood using a bit of steel angle as a guide. I wondered why the cut was serpentine along the pencil line despite the guide.
The saw is good enough for cutting out plywood Santas at Christmas but that is about it. Not much good for an accurate cut. Doesn't seem to be any adjustment like a gib to take out the slack and upon checking other brands at the local hardware store they all have some degree of sloppiness there too. Design requirement or just cheap manufacturing?

So on that note I would be most appreciative to take up your offer of the disk Tony and that way save a bit of work at the same time. (Also keep all my eyes and fingers!)

Thanks too Hanno for that link. Makes a lot more sense now.

Cheers,