in today's video we're looking at two different methods for cutting grooves in
the middle of wood the first method which is the fastest
and cleanest is to use a plunge router in a straight cutting bit
for those of you that may not know a plunge router is a handheld router
that has the ability to plunge or lower the bit into the wood
while the bit is rotating in addition to using a good plunge router
choosing the right bit is just as important there are two main choices for
straight cutters a straight bit which has two cutters or
flutes like this one here or two or even three flute spiral bits
like this one either bit will work but the spiral bit
will move material much quicker and with less effort if you're not that
familiar with spiral bits let me give you a 40 second run down
there are three options an up cut a down cut and a compression
bit the upcut bit cuts or shears in the
upward direction which means that the wood shavings will
be directed upward and the cut on the bottom of the
material will be the cleanest the down cut bit shears in the downward
direction which means that the wood shavings will
be directed downward and the cut on the top of the material
will be the cleanest the compression bit is the best of both
worlds meaning that it has both up shear and
down shear flutes or cutting surfaces making both the top and the bottom of
the material clean moving on there are two main ways to
guide the router while making grooves in the middle of
the wood the first way is to use a router edge guide which gets attached to
the router itself the second way is to use a straight edge
which actually gets attached to the wood router edge guides can be
attached differently depending on the type of router you have
but this one here gets attached with two rods
because it's attached to the router you can easily move it and the router from
one work piece to the next it's also quick at making
adjustments because you can slide the whole
guide in or out or you can use this knob for making micro adjustments
the only downside is that you're limited to how far the guide will reach
so if you have a very wide board or panel the edge guide may not be the best
option so in that case the second way might be
the best which is to use a straight edge a straight edge could be a straight
piece of wood that gets clamped down or it can be a metal straight edge that
has clamps built right in as you can see this allows you
to position a clamp anywhere in the middle of the material when it
comes to the best routing direction it's safest to cut in
a counterclockwise direction around the outside of the clamp
for example if i'm standing in front of the clamp you want to route from
left to right if i'm standing at the end of the clamp like this
you want to route up on the right side of the straight edge
now technically speaking you don't have to be that concerned about
routing direction here especially if you're only making a single pass
right through the middle of the wood because all sides of the bit are
engaging the wood at the same time so you really don't
have to worry about the bit pulling away from you however it
does matter when you're making a double pass to widen a groove let me
explain if i jump over to a wider through dado
for better clarity you can see that if you want to widen a
dado by removing this material here as the
bit rotates it only engages or cuts with half of its
rotation while the other half of the rotation is
not cutting at all in this scenario you can easily confuse
a push cut from a climb cut and the router could potentially pull
away from you aggressively therefore if winding a groove or dado on
this side you want to route from left to right
or from bottom to top and if you want to widen
on this side the routing direction is from
top to bottom or right to left if routing direction is still a bit
confusing for you be sure to go and watch
all of my router videos and i'll leave a link in the notes section below and i'll
also pin it in the comment section like with most things there are
exceptions to these routing directions meaning
you don't always have to be concerned about the direction in which you cut but
if you're just getting started i would definitely recommend following what i
just went over until you get more comfortable with your
tools and the material you're using the second method we're
going to look at is great if you don't have a router
as it utilizes a forstner bit and a chisel to make the groove
as i mentioned in the beginning of the video the first method is the cleanest
but this second method also works well especially if you don't need a
perfectly flat bottom oftentimes this method is used to make
mortises for a mortise and tenon joint but it can also be used to make other
simple grooves as well it starts by laying out the exact
location of the groove which includes its width
and total length it also helps to draw a center line in the groove to better
align the forstner bit next choose a forstner bit that is the
exact width of the groove or slightly smaller the last step before
drilling begins is to figure and mark the depth of the
groove now there are many different ways to
drill to the correct depth but the easiest and cheapest way is to
use a piece of tape wrapped around the bit
or simply eyeball the depth by referencing off the bit
itself once you start drilling overlap your holes with each cut
until you have cleared out most of the material
then with a sharp chisel start removing the remaining material along the edges
and squaring up the ends as you can see the forstner bit removes the bulk of the
material and the chisel just fine tunes the edges
and ends again this method works really well for
shorter grooves dados or mortises but if you have long grooves to
make the router is probably the best option
either way both of these methods work really well it just all depends on what
you're doing they do require some practice so be sure
to get in the shop today and start refining your skills follow me
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working on currently thank you for watching it's
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you