quixote wrote:
I want to make a bunch of bokken for some local univserity martial arts
clubs.
(A bokken is a wooden sword based on a japanese katana, for those who
don't know the term).

If you look at a picture of one, you see that the sword itself has
basically an oval cross-section with a few flattened sides.

Anyway, I think I can deal with most of the aspects of this, but I
can't think of an easy way to make something with an oval crossection
short of sanding it to death on a belt sander and jointer.

Even doing it on a sander, I would like a way that I can precisely get
something perfectly symmetrical.

If anyone can think of an easy way to do it or give me pointers on
where to look, here are the tools I have:
table saw
jointer
belt sander
bandsaw
drill press
various hand tools

You could definitely do it with a router table and a ogee or roundover
bit, plus a straight bit for the blade mortise (two halves glued
together I assume), but it's safer and not all that much slower to do
the rounding over by hand after it's glued up. Unless you're making
hordes of them, I'd opt for the various hand tools and clean up with
hand sanding. You would have to start by cutting the mortise(s) first
in a larger piece of wood for safety, then rip it off, glue it together
and start rounding it over. Some people might counsel that you do the
rounding over on the router, but if the scabbard is like the ones I'm
thinking of, each half is less than 1/2" thick. You could double-stick
tape that to another piece of something, and run it through the router,
but hand tools are just safer when working with thin flexible pieces.

For rounding over a hollow round plane could be a good start:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Auburn-Tool-Co-1...QQcmdZViewItem
You can get them cheaper than that for sure.

Some people would use a draw knife:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-2-Old-Vintag...QQcmdZViewItem
or a spoke shave:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Stanley-...cmdZ ViewItem

I'd probably use a spoke shave for the final cleanup prior to sanding,
but the hollow round will give you more uniform results more easily.

If Steve Knight is reading this, he might want to make a dedicated
Bokken Knight Bubinga plane. It's got a ring to it, doesn't it?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Knight-Toolworks...QQcmdZViewItem

R