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Tips for Successful Routing
Chipping and Tearout
One of the most common problems woodworkers will encounter
when using a router is chipping and tearout of the workpiece.
The following tips can reduce the occurrence of chipping and
tearout.
► Take shallower passes to reach your final depth. With a
shallow pass, the router bit teeth will be cutting parallel with
the grain instead of arching through the grain.
► Examine the woodgrain before routing. If possible, orient the
workpiece so the grain doesn't fracture. To identify the grain
orientation, examine the edge grain, not the surface grain.
Use the following tips:
► If the grain orientation is not in the right direction, turn
the board over. (Rotating the board to the opposite edge
does not change the orientation. Rather, you must flip
the board over.)
► For tight-grained woods where the grain
orientation is not obvious, look for pre-existing
signs, such as small splinters at the corners.
You can also use a knife to cleave the grain.
► For open pore woods such as oak, examine the
capillaries on the edge of the wood. Orient the
board so the router is moving away from the
capillary entrance holes.
Chatter
Router bit chatter is the presence of small curves, or scallops,
in the routed profile. The following items may cause chatter:
► Too fast of a feed rate for the router RPM.
► Trying to take too much material in a single pass.
► Climb-cutting.
► The smaller the diameter of the router bit, the more
prominent or noticeable the chatter will be.
If chatter is present in the routed profile, making a low-speed
cleanup pass typically removes the marks.
Router Control
There may be times when holding the router at
arm’s length does not afford you a fine enough level
of control for small movements. Such is typical when
turning corners or nibbling away at a profile in
multiple passes. One method for achieving finer
control is to keep one side of the router stationary,
as a pivot point, and rotating the other side (as
shown to the right). This is helpful when
approaching areas in a cut where the router might
tend to grab.
A similar stance may be used when you use the
friction of your forearm to assist you in maintaining
a constant feed rate (see page 7). This is because
your muscles need some reaction-time to react to a
sudden grabbing of the bit, but friction is
instantaneous, and will always oppose the feed rate,
even when it changes suddenly.
Supplemental User’s Manual 17