The Wood Whisperer is sponsored by Powermatic and Titebond.
Routers are pretty cool
and that's why I have quite a few
of them. But if you use them incorrectly,
they will [bark] you up.
And if you spend enough time with routers,
you quickly realize there are things you absolutely
should never do. So that's what this is
today. I'm gonna show you some of the
things I've learned over the years
that you should really never do with a router.
First up is going the wrong way
and what I mean by
that is router bits sort of have a
directionality in the way that they are constructed
and a router itself spins
and rotates in one direction
and that could lead to going the wrong
way or the right way.
Let me show you what I mean.
Router bits rotate clockwise right,
so they're spinning like this.
So let's see what happens when this bit
rotates against this work piece.
When I go like this it catches
and I feel resistance the entire way,
right, That's actually what you want.
That resistance is what gives us some control.
What happens if I pull this way while
rotating the bit just wants a role,
it just goes where it's going to go
and that's out of control when you're talking
about a router. Now one of our rules
when routing a work piece is to go from
left to right and that's going to let
the bit do its job without it running away from me.
So I was able to add that round over with
no problem at all. Now,
the problem with left and right as terminology is
that can change if you have something like
this frame, instead of saying left to right
or right to left, I'm going to say
counterclockwise because I'm going to stand here the
whole time, this router will continue around this
perimeter in a counterclockwise motion
and it's all perfectly safe,
but left to right doesn't make a whole
lot of sense, especially when I'm over here,
technically I'm now going right to left.
So in the case of a frame we're
gonna say counterclockwise, but what about the inside
of the frame? Well, that's going to be
the opposite, that one is going to be
clockwise. Now, the reason we have to go
clockwise is you have to kind of take
your body out of the equation
and look at the position of the work
relative to the router. So if I'm going
to go this way on the inside,
that actually makes sense. If if my body
were on this side of the workbench,
now I'm doing the number one rule
that I told you is to go left
to right, because it's just based on the
position of the work piece
and the rotation of the bit.
So I've drawn some arrows on here,
this is what I think of when I
get confused, I think of a picture frame
and I think of the arrows going counterclockwise
on the outside and then clockwise on the
interior perimeter. Now at a router table,
the rule is the opposite,
The router is now upside down
and when we run the work piece through,
we go from right to left.
If you're having trouble understanding why that's using
upside down router and I'll show you right
to left is like this.
Well, that's actually the same exact thing
that I was showing you before moving the
router from left to right now.
Two other things I feel I need to
mention here because someone's gonna ask about them
and one of those is what about routing?
In the middle of space?
We're not right on the corner or the
edge, we're right in the middle surrounded by
wood. Let's say you're making a mortise.
I still like the rule of going left
to write with something like
that because what I find is if you
go right to left, it tends to want
to pull away from the work,
but if you go left to right it
tends to pull you into the work
and your edge guide can hold you in
place. And the other thing is climb cutting,
climb cutting is when you ignore the rule
of direction and you purposely go the opposite
way. Now there are reasons to do it,
you sometimes can get a cleaner result,
but you better know what you're doing if
you're going to go in a direction
that the router already wants to go,
that's climb cutting, don't make the mistake of
going too fast or too slow.
And we can think about this two ways
when it comes to speed.
One is the speed of the bit itself.
A variable speed router will allow you to
adjust the rpm and it really depends on
the bit itself. Really big bits,
you don't want to spin them quite as
fast as very skinny bits
and each bit tends to have a manufacturer's
recommendation for RPMs. So you want to follow
that. But there's another speed to be concerned
about and that's the speed with which you
are moving the router. If you go what
I consider normal speed, not fast,
just normal speed on this little round over
bit, you don't get any burning.
But if I go super slow
and really take my time,
you can see this cherry burns,
just looking at it wrong.
Right? So, understanding the wood,
you're working with the kind of bit,
the speed of the bit
that it's running based on the manufacturer's recommendations.
And then the speed at which you move
the router can dictate cut quality,
it can control how much burning you see.
And also just the overall results of the
cut in the life of the bit as
well. Don't make the mistake of using the
router table with a freestanding bit without the
aid of a support pin.
Most router lifts and tables will come with
them. Typically screw in just a couple inches
away from the bit. What this allows you
to do is stabilize your word peace
and pivot in to make contact with the
bearing and by the time you hit
that bearing you are now in contact with
two points and that's much safer than if
you were to just head into it without
any support at all and hit
that bearing and risk getting into this end grain.
All right. Let's talk about some mistakes you
might make with a collet
and a router one is when you insert
the bit. If you don't have arrows on
the shaft of the bit,
just know that you can go all the
way down and then pull it back up
a little bit. You never want to totally
bottom out the bit. One of the reasons
is that you often have a flared top
here and if you wind up gripping
that with the collet and then tightening it
down, obviously you could loosen
and this thing could go flying while you're
using it. Another important tip is to not
over tighten your collet.
This is how much I tighten this guy
just like that. That's all I need now
of course if you have an old collet,
maybe it's really worn, maybe you do over-
tighten all the time. You may have a
collet that requires that extra tightening but I
never do that. I always tighten my collet
very reasonably and I find
that they grip the bit totally fine
and I don't bash my knuckles every time
I try to loosen this thing.
Don't take too deep of a cut at
once. A lot of times if you have
a really deep cut to make,
it's best to take it in stages,
just go a little bit at a time.
If you don't, you wind up getting tons
of chatter, you could hear it,
you could feel it in the router,
it's just uncomfortable. So always take it in
small passes and you'll get better results and
less burning at the same time.
Don't make the mistake of trying to route
narrow edges. Sometimes this is what you have
to do but there are safer
and better ways to do it Instead of
just trying to balance it
and stop it from tipping about grabbing a
couple pieces of scrap and some clamps
and sandwiching that work piece.
Now you can actually just move your edge
guide, make the adjustments you need to make.
But we've got a whole bunch more support
for that router base, making it nice
and stable. And lastly don't overdo it with
the music. I'm 100% behind ear protection.
I love listening to podcasts
and music while I'm doing my woodworking but
if you have really loud music plus hearing
protection, you can't hear what the tool is
doing and especially when it comes to power
tools, hearing the sound that the tool makes
can tell you a lot about what's going on.
Now each and every one of
those sounds tells me something about what the
router is experiencing and what the bit is
experiencing and what I might need to adjust
to prevent a problem from occurring.
And this is something that comes with time
with experience, you'll get to know it.
But if you can't hear it in the
first place, you never have a chance to
learn it. So if you're working with a
power tool and a delicate operation
and you're in that learning mode,
turn down the music, make sure you can
still hear the sound of the tool
and then proceed. So there you go.
A couple of tips for you
that hopefully will make your routing time a
little bit safer and maybe a little bit
more fun. Thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time.
That's bit abuse.
Hut Hut Hut Hut Hike!
Alright, maybe we'll try it again.