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I made a Vega template for the W-Y and turned a couple to try some of the methods mentioned above to form a shallow face cup.
First thing I tried was the method Frech's friend used on his W-Ys: Heat a carriage bolt head and burn it into the face. I bought a 1/2" bolt, which had a 1 1/16" head -- perfect for this popper. Before I heated it, I turned it in my drill chuck to file off the raised lettering on the head. Afterwards I placed it in a vise and ran a propane torch on it until it was just about glowing, then pressed the birch face into it. It took a few repeats to burn it to the appropriate width/depth. What followed was a pretty messy sanding job to get the soot out of the cup.
End result was a shallow cup (again, it has the arc of about a 1.8" sphere.) As messy as it was, it was kind of fun, and I'm pretty sure I got a better-shaped cup than if used a hand-held rotary tool.
As you know, any popper face cut at a slant like the W-Y is shaped as an oval. The carriage bolt head is perfectly round so the face has the asymmetrical appearance that you see on a lot of wooden poppers.
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