2008-08-20-Woodworking with Routers
Seminars@Hadley
Woodworking Techniques: Selecting and Using Router Tables
Presented by
Larry Martin
Moderated by
Don Golembiewski
June 20, 2008
Don Golembiewski
Good afternoon. I’d like to welcome you to today’s seminar from the Hadley School for the Blind. Today’s topic is Woodworking Techniques: Selecting and Using Routers and Router Tables. Now let me welcome today’s presenter Mr. Larry Martin of Woodworking for the Blind, who’ll be covering a number of topics on woodworking safety and using routers and router tables to make your time in the woodshop more enjoyable. So at this point I will turn the presentation over to Mr. Larry Martin.
Larry Martin
Thanks very much, Don and good afternoon to all of you out there in cyberspace. It’s a glorious day here in the Chicago area, some light broken clouds, nice clear skies and wonderful temperatures. I’m going to celebrate my seventieth birthday in just a few more weeks and I’ve been in the Chicago area for about 50 years now and I’ve to say this is simply the nicest summer I ever remember in this area. Well, we’ve got a lot to do today, so let’s get into routers.
The very first thing that I want to bring up is to talk about router bits and how the woodworkers organize their collections. For myself I have three major categories of router bits. I refer to them as the straight bits, the small edge bits and the large edge bits. I keep my bits in their original sleeves, plastic slips or boxes that they were purchased in and I house them in a plastic drawer container. It’s a little plastic box with three drawers in it, one for each of the three categories.
I’ve received answers from a number of people on how they do it and there’s a lot of variety. Roger Hood for instance, has a 2’ x 2’ rack with holes. He has a Braille sheet to describe each of the bits and their sizes. He winds up using the 1/2 inch round over bit most frequently. Frank Chennels for instance, has tiered strips of wood with 1/4 inch and 1/2inch holes, one tier for each of them. He’s memorized their locations, but recently decided he’s going to put Braille labels on them.
Diane Meyer for instance, keeps her sets of bits in their original boxes and then individual ones that she’s purchased in their plastic sleeves and groups them by the type, straight, cove, etc. Dale Leavens has two router tables, three routers including a monster Triton router. He labels his with DYMO tape so that he can tell which is which. Bill Reynolds has two sliding tray shelves in his router table. Dennis Walker determines the size by feel. Tom Huhn has made a cabinet for his router bits and he has rows of bits grouped by type starting with the smallest and moving on to the largest.
For the types of bits, now, the straight bits are those that work on a straight edge of wood. The most common of these would be the flush trim bits or the straight bits used for cutting dados or grooves.
The edge bits are the more complicated ones and they’re the ones that really give you the various shapes. Describing these can be difficult. Feeling them can be a little bit dangerous because of the sharp edges to the bit. So what I’ve done is to cut a block of wood using each of the various bits and then I can look at these samples. That’s really helpful, particularly when you’re talking with other people about what an edge might look like.
I’m going to reach down now into my box and just pull out one of them. The first one I pull out is entitled, the quarter inch radius ogee. The ogee is essentially an ‘S’ curved profile. It has a convex portion of the curve on top and the concave portion the bottom. So the convex portion would look like a round over. The concave portion would look like a cove. The box probably has 25 different profiles in there and this is one of the easiest ways of telling what it would be. The blind woodworked of course could also make these types of samples and label them with Braille labels.
I want to move now into a few topics about the bits. Cleaning and sharpening. The router bit is turning somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 RPMs depending on the type of router you have. It’s obviously doing a great deal of work. The heavier the cut you take the more work the router bit is doing and this means that that edge is being beat up quite a bit. In doing it, it can easily burn wood and burning the wood of course is going to cause a pitch residue or buildup on the router bit.
It’s important to keep the bits clean. One of the easiest ways to buy one of the various products for cleaning saw blades or router bits. These generally have some type of a petroleum product in them to help remove the pitch buildup. It’s also just as easy to use something like Goo Gone or Simple Clean, those various brand items used for cleaning up things. And finally, you can simply use ammonia. I often have a little tub of ammonia, dip a saw blade into there to loosen the pitch and you can obviously do the same thing with the router bits.
Keeping them clean is going to help a great deal in preventing burn on your wood. But also all this heavy use is going to take a great deal of use and therefore you need to keep the bit sharpened. The important thing about sharpening a bit is to only sharpen the flat side. Never, never touch the profile because it’s too easy to change the profile and more importantly too easy to change the balance of the router bit. Using something like a diamond stone it’s easy to rub that stone over the flat side to keep it sharp.
Now, the handheld router – there are three types that I consider, the thick space router, the plunge router and then as a separate category the smaller routers like the laminate trimmers, which typically are fixed base routers as well. Either one is used for the handheld operation.
Now in handheld operations it’s extremely important to remember the direction you’re going to be moving the router. If you take the router turn it upside down and you’re looking down on the bit – so the router is below and the bit is protruding above – that bit is going to revolve in a counterclockwise direction and you want to feed the wood into the turning bit. So if you’re using the outside edge of a piece of wood and a handheld router you want to feed the wood from left to right on the router. On the other hand, if you have an inside edge, for instance the inside edge of a frame, you then would feed the wood piece from the right to the left.
The handheld router is used for a variety of different projects. One of the most common would be of course edge treatments. You want to treat a table top to give it a molded edge or a plaque for instance. These are typically used by installing a fence on the project and then butting the router up against that fence and moving along the edge. Other bits will have a guide bearing and this then will be placed against the edge or against a template to accomplish the same work.
The second type of use would be a template. You’re cutting shaping and smoothing a wood piece and you need to know how to make that template. Templates typically are cut out on a band saw, which leaves a relatively rough edge. You’re cutting along a guideline. The sighted woodworker of course can see this. The blind woodworker is going to have to take other steps to be able to cut close to the line, including very likely getting help from somebody.
But once the item is rough-cut then the real work begins and that work is in fairing the curve. Fairing the curve is the most important thing about a template because if there’s the slightest bit of jiggle or rough spot in the template the router will pick that up and you will see the rough spot after you cut it.
What I do is I take that edge and I begin sanding it, often with a sander on the drill press to get it roughly sanded and then using a block of wood or a rounded piece with sandpaper on it to keep rubbing it over. The most important thing you want to do is take your finger and trace the outline. Your finger will tell you where there are little gaps, gouges or rough spots and these are what you work on and sand them nice and smooth.
Once you’ve got the smooth edge, sand it with a high grit to really smooth it off. Maybe even wax it to really make it smooth and now the router can easily follow that edge. The guide bearing will ride tightly on it and you’ll wind up with a very nice curve.
There are other types of templates that use right angles, templates such as for cutting a hinge or a mortise. These can be made relatively easy because what you’re trying to do is to create an open space, an open square or a rectangle inside of a piece of wood. Now obviously cutting that inside of a piece of wood is going to be tough. There’s a much simpler way. Use hardboard or thin MDF, cut some straight pieces that give you nice straight edges.
Now let’s say you need to have your opening exactly one inch wide. Cut a strip one inch wide, cut other strips that are larger, say 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide that will be the long edges and then position the one inch wide piece between those two long edges and glue them together. You now have got a template with exactly parallel edges and precisely right angle corners.
The handheld router can also be used for joinery. The plunge router typically is used for this and mortis jigs are used. We will get to that in a later seminar session on exactly how to cut the mortises. It’s a relatively complicated topic, but an important one. The other uses for the handheld router would be in hollowing out a piece of wood using an inlay bushing kit, cutting dados, cutting grooves and reeds. All of these types of things can be done with a handheld router.
I think we ought to take a break right now and starting treating some questions. We’ll give about ten minutes for questions on handheld routers. We’ll then go back to router tables and have a question session following that as well. And then a couple of features – we’ll talk about some new tools and accessories, projects by blind woodworkers and then have a final period for questions again. So I’m going to release the mic now and we’ll take some questions. Are there any questions Don?
Don Golembiewski
No one has put a text message question up at this point, but if anyone does have questions certainly hold down your control key and we will get to you as soon as possible. One question, how would one decide what would be the best profile for the edge of a table or a frame that they’re building? And how would they choose the correct router bit for that procedure?
Larry Martin
Here’s how I do it; the answer that I give is it’s a matter of esthetics. What are you looking for in it? I’ve got a drawer full of router bits and I’ve got a box full of samples, so I run through them quickly. Almost always I eliminate virtually all of them to begin with, getting down to one or two, sometimes maybe three and I look at it and pick out which one I want.
The sample identifies what the router bit is, so I go and do it. But it really is a question of esthetics. There are a few types that simply won’t work for your project and you’ll see that as you use the samples because it doesn’t match up with your project. But I think that the real answer is it’s what you want in style and appearance.
Don Golembiewski
Another question is there is sometimes some confusion between picking out a carbide bit for your router and the option of using a steel cutting router bit. Can you explain the difference between the two?
Larry Martin
The HSS bits, the high speed steel bits are good workman like bits for the router. Their one drawback is that they dull more rapidly than the carbide bits do. The carbide bits are more expensive, but they hold their edge a lot longer. Nearly all the bits I have are the carbide bits. They are a bit more expensive, but they will last a lot longer and that’s the type that I’ve chosen to buy. But either one will work. You’ll have to pay more attention to the high speed steel, the HSS bits, to make sure they’re staying sharp and you’ll have to use your diamond stone on them more frequently.
Don Golembiewski
Thanks Larry. That answered my question. Are there any other questions at this point for Larry Martin? Otherwise we’ll move on to the next section of our seminar on woodworking using routers.
Larry Martin
Well, let’s start talking about the router table then, using the router in a router table. When using the handheld router, the router motor, the body of the router itself is uppermost and the bit is protruding downward from the router. Exactly the opposite happens when using the router table. The router is mounted to the underside of a table, so that the motor hangs down lowest and the router bit protrudes through an opening in the router table.
Two points I want to mention right here to make sure we cover them. There obviously will be an opening in the tabletop for the router bit to come through. It’s very important to keep that hole as small as possible. I’m holding in my hand right now a plastic type of insert. This particular one has an opening of about 2 1/2 inches. It obviously will accommodate the larger bits.
If I’m using a smaller bit I’ll shift to a different insert that will have an opening only about one inch wide. The main reason for this is safety. If you’re moving a wood piece across the table and the piece is just slightly bowed so that the leading edge bends down somewhat, it could well get stuck in that opening. Therefore the smaller the opening the less likely that is to happen.
The second point is in the router fence, the fence to the table. Very often the fence is pulled up quite close to the router bit. The fence is what’s guiding the wood piece often. In that case the face of the fence is exactly parallel with the outer cutting edge of the bit, once again, to provide an opening for the blade. The wider that opening is the more possible it is for the wood piece to get caught on the edge. So zero clearance openings are very helpful.
To make a zero clearance opening for your fence is relatively quite easy. You may have a variety of different fences, but this method will work with all of them. Take a piece of hardboard 1/8inch thick or maybe 1/4inch thick. Cut a piece roughly 2 feet long and it’s going to be probably 4 inches wide or so. You’re going to use double-faced tape to put this facing on your router fence. Then gradually bring the fence forward into the spinning blade and that blade will cut an opening, a hole through this piece of hardboard.
That then becomes your auxiliary fence. The router bit will spin within that opening. It’ll have zero clearance on the side. Your cuts are smoother, but more importantly it’ll prevent any part of the wood from getting caught in the opening. The perfection of your cut depends on the guide bearing and how flat the work piece is to the work table. Either of these things is going to leave a ripple in the cut that you make.
Larry Martin
So making the hold downs in the push blocks are extremely important. When you have a push block as I’ve described it’s going to be very easy to keep the wood piece against the fence. It will not be so easy to keep it flat on the table, so a second device is needed for that. Very often what the answer might be is to get a hold down or a push block exactly the same thickness as your work piece and then mount a second piece over the top of it that will lay on top of your work piece and hold it down flat against the table.
In my push blocks I have one that’s about 6 inches wide and I have two handles on it, so that I can position my hands there and I know I can control the push block and keep them away from the bit. The hold down to hold the work piece tight against the worktable could be attached with double-stick tape. But I might be a little bit leery about that, so I often would use screws so you know it’s going to be exactly in that place and it’s not going to give way at all. The smaller the piece that you’re working with the more important these items become.