I am making the baseboard mouldings for my new home and am getting "rough" results from my router. I hope somebody out there can tell me what is wrong with my technique.
The current rooms I am working on are to be painted so I am using poplar. The moulding starts with a 1x4 at the bottom. On top of the I want a decorative moulding. I have picked a Bosch edge moulding that has a 1 5/8 inch long cutter. The wood piece is 1/2 inch thick by 1
3/4 inches high ( the extra height is to reach the bearing, and will be cut off later). I have built an inverted U shaped jig that is about 3 feet long and is attached to my router table. It centered with about 1 1/2 feet on each side of the bit. For routing I slide the wood through the inverted U where it passes over the bit (vertical).The bit is new, and sharp. The router is a PC 7519 running at full speed.
The bit sounds like it is chewing off chips instead of making a clean cut. The resulting moulding is rough and when held up to an oblique light appears to have divots in it. They can be sanded out, but due to the complex shape I would need to fit a lot of different curves along the length of each board.
I tried using two passes per board - the first wihere the board does not quite touch the bearing and the second at full depth with contact to the bearing. The results were the same for each case.
Am I expecting too much from the bit - I expected a smooth cut in poplar. If so, do I just bite the bullet and make a Bondo mold to do the trim. Is there something I can do to my technique to make the thing work for me. I need to make well over 1000 feet of this stuff.
Thanks, Len