How do I control the darn router? Newbie question.

[Eugene]

edge guide and stop blocks.

[Eric Scantlebury]

I need to route a square approx. 1 inch by 5 inches by 1/8 inches deep in a piece of 10 foot 1x8. I have never tried to do this before.

I have a porter cable 691 with a plunge base and I set the depth guage up and tried to "free hand" it on a test piece of lumber. Well - let's just say that free handing is out of the question.

How should I do this to get a "perfect" square? I kind of figure I need a "4 sided edge guide". An edge guide won't work on all sides as it won't extend long enough into the board for two of the sides.

I'm at a loss.

TIA Eric

[bridger]

[patriarch]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

About an hour a go, the UPS guy brought my new trim router bases that Pat sells. These already are making a difference in how the little 7310 feels, doing edge treatments.

When my wife, looking for her quilting supplies order, asked what the UPS fellow had brought, I grinned, and told her "new safety equipment".

Now back to your regularly schedule USENET...

Patriarch

[MikeG]

What I do and would do in your case is lay out the square with double sided tape and some 1/4" ply then route out the hole using a bushing guide on the router to cut the hole.

[Fred the Red Shirt]

I do not understand how a square can be 1" x 5" x 1/8" deep. But that doesn't affect the answer.

Stated a little LESS succintly use the edge guide to set the distance from the edge of the board and clamp two cleats accross the board to limit the travel along the board.

You can also eliminate the edge guide by using stop cleats that are longer than the board is wide and then clamp, nail, or screw two boards to the overhanging edges so that you can run the router around inside of the square thus formed.

Use ear protection too. Even if the router doesn't sound loud, routers produce sound that, though beyond the audible range, will cause hearing loss in the audible range.

[Pat Barber]

Pretty simple...create a template out of plywood by using four sticks of wood with double side tape.

The template can be 1/4" plywood. The "sticks" can be 3/4" plywood.

Bill Hylton explains the method in "Router Magic", but the jist of the method is to "layout" the square by trapping the base of the router inside a "box" created by four sticks of wood.

You need to "limit" the forward motion of the router by "stops"(the top of the fence and the bottom of the fence) and "limit" the side to side motion of the router by the stops on the side(two sides of the box). This creates a piece of plywood with a square cut in it(the template).

Use the template to cut the square in the 1"x8"...

Eric Scantlebury wrote:

[patrick conroy]

rectangle...

You could make a template - take a piece of 1/2" plywood or MDF and cut a perfect 1x5" rectangle out. Mount up a top-bearing dado cleaning bit (got one from Woodline) and hog out the rectangle. (Or size the template's rectangle appropriately to use a guide bushing.)

Or -- get some more 1x8's and put one on each side of the target 1x8. You'll now have 8 additional inches of support on each side. Find some straight pieces of scrap and build a guide rectangle that you can guide the router base around.

[Old Nick]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 23:47:13 GMT, "Eric Scantlebury" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Freehand is way off, yes.

One hint that nobody seems to have mentioned is that when using a template, you should always feed the router so that the rotation forces the router _into_ the guide / template. The leading side of the router does the cutting and pushing sideways.

You need to clamp two longish pieces of timber across the beam to stop the router that way, then clamp etc two more pieces to those, and two more on top of the last two, to stop the router _across_ the work. The whole thing needs to account for the disatance between the edge of the router base and the cutter. You have to measure or calculate that for every cutter.

You will of still not have a rectangle, because the corners are rounded.

***************************************************** Have you noticed that people always run from what they _need_ toward what they want?????