Router and cutters

Yes the straight cutter can be used,however when it comes to the four corners of the recess you're going to need another straight cutter as fine(thin) a bit as you can find,or chisle the corners out.

Thanks. Does the '2 flute plunge cutter' (fair trips off the tongue!) mean there's no need for a chisel?

Are you sure? The flutes are the grooves down the side, next to the cutting edges. A plunge cutter has sharpened ends as well as sharpened sides.

What type of locks? are you fitting? or do you mean door catches? some door catches barrels are oval in shape and don't need fine corners. For instance this type...

No, you still need a chisel to square the corners.

Catches, I meant catches. This type...

What size collet(s) does that have?

What're the dimensions?

Buy them where you can - "Discount Supermarkets", market stalls, BMs, ironmongers, online.. N.B. TCT cutters (or STC for small ones) are superior to HSS in terms of longevity.

Most straight cutters are twin flute.

For this application, something like a Trend 6.35mm or 8mm cutter with the same shank diameter would be suitable e.g. TR05X1/4TC which is from their trade product range. Alternatives would be CMT or Freud.

If the cutter that you have is a similar design, then it would also suitable, although normally the cutters that come free with tools are high speed steel rather than tungsten carbide and will not be of brilliant quality.

An easy way to make cutouts for locks and catches is to use a lock or hinge jig - e.g. Screwfix 12295. However, these are designed to work with a guide bush fitted to the router. These come in different sizes from Trend and others.

If you go this path, you don't really need to buy a lock or hinge jig. You can make one easily enough and run the router round it to make the cutouts. You have to calculate the sizes of course. There is info. on how to do all that on the Trend guidebushes page.

It's worth doing this since you have a fair number to do, because once you have the jig, the job will be quick. The alternative would be to run the router against a block clamped to the door each time. There will be 64 of these so it will get boring and reproducibility is not as good as with a jig.

The router will not cut square corners, of course. This is why a

I find a dremel, with a pointy 'christmas tree' carbide bit works really well for this. The bit is ~3.4mm diameter at the base, and comes to a pointy tip.

I'll have one o those.

Cheers MrRumm

or a corner chisel:

There is a fair chance a guide bush came with the router...

This is one of those occations that you could also knock up a quick jig yourself since one presumes all the doors wil be the same and hence one fixed size jig ought to do them all.

~7mm diameter, ~20mm long

Thanks for the advice. Just annoying that B&D should be so misleading.

Possible, although I couldn't see any mention of it in the manufacturer information or of any kind of sub-base to take one.

Actually not that hard, either.

Andy, John - thanks for the advice. So much to learn, it might be faster to revert to a chisel!

Don't give up.

It all sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.

All that you are really doing is getting a cutter positioned to the correct place and running something (the guide bush) against a straight edge.

The results are really well worth the effort.

Jigs are actually pretty quick to make once you've done a couple and can be kept for hinges and catches in the future.

If you need to do lots of rebates all the same, why not knock up a quick template out of a bit of ply. Just jigsaw out a hole to match the plate on the lock / hinge whatever (make it bigger all round by half the difference in diameters between bush and bit), tack a couple of blocks on the bottom to locate it nicely on the edge of the door in the right place and route away. Might take you 15 mins to make the jig, but you will be able to do each rebate very quickly after that.

It's still a chisel.