I am planning to make some raised panel doors from pine and other softwoods. My router has a minimum speed of 15,000 rpm. I am using the Freud cabinet bit set with a 3.5" raised panel bit. Is this speed safe? There is no information on the Freud site concerning this.
10,000 is what you want. At 15,000 your router bit tip speed is near 230 mph. At 10,000 the tip speed is near 153 mph. It is you safety more than anything that you should be concerned about here.
I had the same problem. I tried using the panel raising bit (it was a Rockler bit, not a Freud but that shouldn't matter much) at the high speed and it scared the crap outta me. I went out and bought one of those electronic speed controllers and I would say only that it worked well enough to get me through that one job. If at all possible, get yourself a variable speed router.
I never use my router at highest speeds. Since routers don't have an rpm indicator I just set mine a bit above median speed and make multiple passes , removing a little wood at a time. More time consuming but safer better results.
snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (dteckie) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:
Strange how thoughts seem to drop into my head these days, but...
You weren't even CONSIDERING doing this without a well-secured router table and a solidly attached fence, were you?
Because that's a pretty reliable way to self-nominate for a Darwin Award.
Are you feeling a bit nervous yet? Overconfidence with this tool causes lots of cleanup in the shop. And not necessarily by the one who was overconfident.
Patriarch, who thinks there are a number of ways to get fancy raised panel doors, safely. Calling a CNC-enabled millwork shop is one of the most attractive...
Depends on why you do woodwork. If you're doing it to make money then farming some things out makes sense. If you're doing it for recreation then farming out the "interesting" stuff defeats the purpose.
I just had another thought. I think we have all been assuming that the panel raising bit is the horizontal type. I have not used the vertical bits, but I would assume that the problem would not be as severe. Am I wrong?
I know that the vertical bit would still be a large chunk of spinning metal just looking for some flesh to feast on, and would still require a great deal of respect. But do they need to be slowed down too?
Wayne
"patriarch snipped-for-privacy@nospam.comcastDOTnet" snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (dteckie) wrote in
One of the reasons that I keep the shaper around instead of selling it is that I don't like doing raised panels on a router table.
It scares me.
When I used to use the router table I would waste as much wood as possible on the tablesaw before making the first pass on the router table.
The routers that I've used were all 3HP or better and either had variable speed or were used with a speed control. The first one was a Makita 3012 and the most recent one is a biggish Porter Cable.
15000 is way to fast in my book. On the shaper I make the roughing passes at 7000, with a slow feed rate and use the 10000 setting for the final pass at a higher feed rate.
If you stay with the router, try to take light cuts and work your way to the final cut in steps. You will get more chatter out of the router than the shaper, as it isn't beefy enough to resist the side loading.
If that router is fixed at a minimum of 15000, I'd get a speed control or another router.
A shaper or a beefier router is a lot less expensive than a hospital stay.
Regards, Tom.
Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
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