I'm considering milling the rails and stiles of the cabinet doors I'm working on with a molding head set up on my vintage Craftsman RAS. Before I buy the hardware I'd appreciate any feedback on this process and its effectiveness. Does anyone have experience that they can share? Thanks in advance, Jim
I'd use 1/2" bits and a router table with a beefy router.
You might want to rethink the whole project IMHO. Yellow pine for rails and stiles? I believe I'd choose a harder and more stable wood. Maple, for example, won't have nearly as much tearout when routed as yellow pine, and it's not nearly so prone to warping.
Your router seems a bit underpowered for that job, but I could be wrong.
If your router table is at least as long as the longest piece you'll be routing, it's long enough. That way, at least half of any piece you feed through the cutter will be supported by the table. If you're hoping to route
30" rails and stiles on one of the little bitty benchtop router "tables" they sell at Sears or Home Depot, I think you'll be disappointed.-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Save the baby humans - stop partial-birth abortion NOW
Well, I use a shaper, but wouldn't recommend the expense until you are sure you want to make a lot of doors. I just finished an 8' tall pair for a kitchen cabinet...a challenge but nothing extreme. I put a rail in the middle, so the panels wouldn't be so long AND to give more shear strength to support the shelves full of cans that are attached. If there's any interest in this, I'll try a picture.
I have a few pine doors and they are fine. I have a friend with a roomful and they are fine. Pine is great because it lets you do stuff with less HP and noise. And it's safer to learn on because it's less likely to catch cutters in wild grain. Just wait till you work some hickory or gum with interlocking swirly grain!
Make you a table from some old ply and clamp on a 2X4 for a fence and start practicing. You'll soon see what's important! I'd pay $150 for an old Cman shaper before spending many hundreds on a fancy router table. But size does matter. The longer your table, the easier to handle long cuts.
Since I do shaper cuts on doors, I don't know if you can get a bearing guided router bit for them or not. If you can, then you don't even need the table! Well, I just looked at Woodline.com, my favorite bit source, and they do show beariing supported bits, so the ends should be pretty easy. Setting the depth of cut on the shaper is tedious, because of not having the bearing.
The hardest of all is getting the rails and stiles to match up. I do all the long cuts first, then make trial cuts on the rail ends until I get a fit. It's always trial and error. I'll also admit that the belt sander is the tool that sometimes finishes the process!
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.