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Spotted at Holz-Handwerk: The Kurvenlinfix, a Better System for Routing Smooth Curves

Let’s say you need to cut curves into a flat surface, whether it’s a piece of furniture, a countertop or large physical letters for a sign. Unless you’ve got a CNC machine, you’ll mark and cut your curve to the best of your ability with a jigsaw or bandsaw; then it’s off to your oscillating spindle sander, disc sander, belt sander and/or hand-sanding block to clean up the edges and keep them in tangency. This is particularly crucial when you’re making a template, as copies routed with a bearing-guided bit will all repeat any flaw you’ve overlooked.

German tischlermeister (master carpenter) Dierk Söder and his tool design company, ProTus, has invented a better way to do this. He calls his invention the Kurvenlinfix, and here’s what it looks like:

Here’s how you’d integrate it into your workflow to save yourself a lot of time and cleaning up of the curves:

While the material might look like ABS in the still shots, it definitely isn’t; I touched the stuff and it’s a strange blend of stiff and bendy at the same time. They’ll only say it’s made of “an elastic synthetic material that doesn’t contain plasticizers,” so we’ve no idea what this proprietary material is.

Originally designed for luthiers (guitar makers), the Kurvenlinfix comes in different sizes capable of hitting different radii. For those of you looking to give it a try, you can find a list of international distributors here.