Thoughts on fixing my screw up part 2

If it broke clean, maybe you could glue it back. Small bites are best though.

but should I use a straight bit and plunge router in small passes to avoid this again?

Yes! I just made a blog about this. Clearly you were trying to take off too much in one pass. You would not try to take as much with a plane, why did you try with a power tool? Small increments make for a more precise, accurate and flawless work.

On the other hand, I bet you wont make the same mistake… :-)

-- To surrender a dream leaves life as it is — and not as it could be.

I actually for some reason did with it like I do with mdf, rough cut close, trim excess with router bit to within an 1/8” and then run the bearing on the template. I’m just so used to doing it that way. I took the plunge router and routered ~1/8” deep each pass, which has worked, so now back to fixing my first screw-up

-- www.nobleprojects.blogspot.com

Ah sorry, forgot about a fix. If you have a clean cut, in other words the two surfaces match and there is no splintering you can glue the broken part and it will not be noticeable. If you have splintering then it gets harder as you have a round perimeter. You would have to make a straight cut on both sides, and a spline that would make up for the blade kerf area. Glue the 3 together, sand and will most likely have to make another router pass to even out the side as it will most likely extend past your mdf pattern.

-- To surrender a dream leaves life as it is — and not as it could be.

There is a way to do this if you can be very careful. I am sure that you are feeding the disk into the bit using a CCW rotation of the disk. That is the safest way to do it.
In this application, I would do a climb cut (rotate CW into the bit). However, as you feed the disk into the bit, the bit will try to throw the disk right off the table. Take a piece of MDF and drill a 1/4” hole approximately 10” from one end. Glue a short 1/4” dowel into the hole with about 1/4” sticking out of the hole. Using at least two clamps, clamp the MDF to the router table so that the dowel center is 12” in front of the bit. Drill another 1/4” hole into the center of the bottom of your table top. The hole should go only a little deeper than 1/4”. The table top will now be placed on the dowel and it should not move on the table top (except to rotate). Make sure that you use a lot of downward pressure on the table top so that it doesn’t get loose. Try it first on a piece of scrap so that you are confident when you do the table top.

DON’T DO THIS IF YOU ARE NOT CONFIDENT THAT IT IS SAFE.

-- "A goal without a plan is a wish."