Using a Router Trim Bit

Are you feeding on the wrong side of the bit (climb cutting)?

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I don’t think so…

-- robbi

I bought this bit recently to use with my router to trim the sides on a bookcase I made, it worked fine when I was holding the router, but now that I have it in my table, I think it might be to powerful? I am just holding the workpiece, I don’t know any other way to do it.

-- robbi

How big is the workpiece? Can you take a few photos? I’m wondering if your climb cutting or something similar.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I’ll take a photo right now, be right back.

-- robbi

Try this article and see if it helps.

http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=17863

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Sounds like you are climb cuttijng.

-- WOOD/DON (...one has the right to ones opinion but not the right to ones own facts...)

I can’t figure out how to put the pictures on, not my day…..I read the article, maybe I need a pivot. I think I will try that. I was trying to start in the center of the piece and do just half of the curve at a time, that worked somewhat, but it was ripping off my corner pieces. Then if I tried to start on the end, it immediately would grab the piece.

-- robbi

Are you pushing the piece to the right or the left of the bit? Also, to post pictures, you probably need to upload them to a hosting site such as flickr and link to them using the insert image feature.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I am pushing to the left of the bit. Maybe it’s the way the grain is going? I just read an article on climb cutting and that does sound like what I am doing, but I think I am feeding in the right direction, every side of the piece has a curve to it so I can’t use a fence at all.

-- robbi

This is the project

My router table setup, the piece it the belly of the horse

a little closer

-- robbi

To me it looks like your climb cutting from the photo. If your trying to push through starting at the back of the work piece. I would like for someone else to verify this.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I just went out and tried one more time and it seems to work fine on the right side of the piece so I put the template on the other side so I could trim only on the right and it worked out okay. I just have to be really really careful because if I get to close to the left of the middle, it grabs. I’m thinking it must have something to do with the grain. It’s scary and I have so many pieces to do, I am worried I might hurt myself. I also have to stay completely away from the corners because it is snapping those off as soon as I get close. The wood is pine, maybe that has something to do with it too. Thanks for all your help Wayne.

-- robbi

Pine is not going to be very friendly to you for this project. The intergrain bond is very weak. One of the reasons you see all those karate class guys buying the clear pine boards at the borg. they cut them down and punch through them to demonstrate their prowess. No real feat. If you plan on painting this horse I would suggest poplar or mdf. If stained or natural, go with the red oak or other hardwood of your choice.

Ed

-- Come on in, the beer is cold and the wood is dry. www.crookedlittletree.com

B y the way, with the wood between you and the cutter, move it from right to left and do your rough cut with the jig saw or band saw as close to the line as you can get to reduce the amount of wood the router bit needs to remove.

Ed

-- Come on in, the beer is cold and the wood is dry. www.crookedlittletree.com

Ed’s got it. I try to leave less than 1/8 outside the template. feed it right to left.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Hang in there, Robbi. You’re getting it.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Hey there Robbi … sorry to hear about the frustrating start. I put together some suggestions for you … feel free to shoot me a message if you need any more help or clarification …

Issue #1 … I don’t blame ya for being worried. I really hate using my router table for small pieces. Not sure if you have one of these ... or something like it, but they do come in really handy when trying to work with smaller pieces like that. Not only does it keep your hands up and away from the bit … but the handles help you control the piece with a little more confidence (before I got that, I used to use a wood clamp … clamped to the board upright). Without something like that, I would definitely consider clamping the wood to a workbench and taking the router to the workpiece rather than taking the workpiece to the router table for safety reasons.

Issue #2 … feed direction. Based on what you are saying … your feed direction is wrong 1/2 the time. When you are feeding it from center to left, you are going in the wrong direction … and thus getting horrible and might I add dangerous results. When you are feeding from the center to the right … you are going the proper direction … and thus, getting better results. This is one of those “nature of the beast” things and I could spend an hour trying to explain the reasons behind this … but for now, just trust me when I say … when you use the wrong feed direction, your router is going to want to grab that wood with all it’s might and throw it … and more often than not, you’re going to end up with choppy results … if not worse. Yes, there are times and places where feeding the wood into the bit backwards can come in handy … but this isn’t one of them … and I would never never … ever … ever … suggest doing it on a router table like you were attempting to do ... this can be very dangerous!!!

Solution to Issue #1 … get a pivot pin … use a pivot pin … thank a pivot pin. The Router Workshop guys have a few tips if ya need help. I don’t use a pivot pin for everything … but I would use one in this case … due to the size and shape of my workpiece. To solve that feed direction problem, get the feed pin … use it to help you start your cut at the end rather than the center … so that you are feeding the wood into the cutter the right way throughout the entire cut.

Issue #3 … blown out ends … pine can be a little tricky to work with … and the ends usually need some sort of support to prevent blow outs … especially when it comes to routing those tricky pointed corners or ends. So how do you support a curved piece? My solution is usually to start with a square piece of stock … when I use the bandsaw or jig saw to cut away the waste … I save the waste to use at my support … since the outer edge was square to begin with and the curve of the inside edge should be fairly close to the piece it was cut from … I can clamp them back into place fairly easy … so that my corner has something behind it to support the grains when the bit gets there.

-- Lip's Dysfuncational Firewood Farm, South Bend, IN

Thank you Lip, all of your suggestions were very helpful. I was so afraid of the situation I was in that I decided to cut the pieces with the bandsaw and then sand them instead of routing them. I’m not sure it will be as nice, and it took a long time, but I felt much safer. I am going to order the pin and the holding tool right away so I have it on hand for my next adventure. I have one last question. After sanding my pieces to size, I did a round over on my router table on the very same pieces that were grabbed from me yesterday and did not have a single problem. I did everything in the same direction (I’m not sure I explained which direction I had been going very well, essentially I feed against the rotation of the bit). Do your know why I would have so much trouble with the trim bit and none with the roundover? Thanks again to everyone for all the help, I might even post a picture of this thing if I ever get it done!!

-- robbi

I use 1/2 ” MDF for my templates it looked like you were using 1/4 ” masonite. It seemed I could see a black line where you were burning with the bearing. With 1/2 ” you can move the bearing up to where it is fully on the template. The bit won’t cut the template since the bearing and the blade are alined. Also only leave about 1/8th outside of the line for the router to take off.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

A larger diameter bit should help too.

-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com

Second on the pivot pin

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

You’re right, Dennis, that’s a 1/2”. She would be better with a 1” and maybe have the bearing on the other end.(I never get it right, which is a top bearing?)

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

What do you mean you might post some pictures?

::: kickin’ ya in the shin :::

Young lady, you can’t have no puddin’ if you don’t post your pictures!

To answer your question as simply as possible without getting too complicated and confusing both of us … lol … take a look at the cuts you were making. While you may not have been making a very deep cut with that flush trim bit, your bit was contacting quite a bit of surface area … from the looks of it, your workpiece is 3/4” or better. 3/4” may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things … but that’s quite a bit of wood for your bit to grab a hold of. Now assuming you were using a 1/4” round over bit … your round over bit was most likely contacting a lot less surface area … and the surface it was touching wasn’t concentrated in a straight line across that one side.

When you have some time, I would suggest downloading and watching this. It’s the Woodworking Online podcast and while I don’t think he covers templates specifically (it’s been awhile since I’ve watched the whole thing) ... he does touch on a lot of the basics I think you’ll find very useful such as pivot pins and feed direction.

Hahahahahahahaha … Good Lord … now I’m going to have the guy from Pink Floyd runnin’ through my head yellin’ “You can’t have no puddin’ if I don’t eat your meat! How can you have any puddin if you don’t ear your meat?”

-- Lip's Dysfuncational Firewood Farm, South Bend, IN

Yeah Lip, but we do need an education…

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

LOL,Lip!!
My favorite album!

God Bless,
Hawg
(slightly dysfunctional Christian)

-- Saving barnwood from the scrapyards

Robbi, I have run into this problem also. What happens is that on one side of your piece (the one you had trouble with) the wood fibers are being lifted (like petting a dog from tail to head). This allows the bit to dig deeply into the work piece and throw it. There are some other solutions. 1. Route the “good” side (where the fibers are pushed down), remove the template and affix it to the opposite side of the work piece. Now the old “bad” side should route cleanly. 2. Or, there are other flush trim or template bits with angled blades that allow shearing action, not a chopping one that most bits have. This goes along with Lip’s surface area comment. 3. Get a second bottom bearing bit, this way your can leave your template on the same side, only flip the work piece for the problematic side and use the bottom bearing bit (this reverses the grain to bit direction orientation). There are even bits with two bearings, one on top and one on bottom.

I hope this makes at least some sense. Good luck