On 9/5/13 9:05 AM, Leon wrote:
On 9/4/2013 10:54 PM, Gramps' shop wrote:
I pinged Pat Warner earlier today to ask about a safe way to present a
short box side to a hot cutter on the router table for the purpose of
routing a stopped dado for the box bottom. Pat's advice is never drop
a workpiece onto a hot cutter on the router table. This is something
I have done often with longer box and drawer sides.
As one who is fond of all of my fingers, I am going to take his
advice. I see two options:
-- Create a jig/fixture to hold the work and guide my plunge router
through the cut.
-- Use an upcut bit on the table and raise the cutter into the work,
which it turn would be held by a fixture of some sort. Once the
cutter is at the proper depth, then advance the piece to the stop.
So, I'm curious as to WREC denizens' practices and thoughts about the
second option.
Larry
Several years ago I was cutting a pair of 2" long, through, and stopped
3/8" wide slots through a 1/4" thick piece of Ipe. The Ipe was 2" wide
and about 3.5" long. FWIW Ipe is about 2.5 times harder than Oak.
I successfully made this plunge through cut on a router table about 3~4
thousand times.
YOU DO NEED TO BE AWARE OF EVERY TING THAT CAN HAPPEN!!!!!
I used the fence to determine the location of the slot relative to the
edge of the wood, naturally.
I used 2 stops, one at the beginning and one at the end of travel to
establish the length of the stopped through cuts.
With a rubber soled push block to set on top and to cover the exposed
cutter as it pierced the top of the work I would place one end of the
work at the stop on the right side of the fence and the work edge
against the fence I would slowly and with both hands lower the left end
of the work down on to the spinning 4 flute end mill bit to make the
through plunge piercing. After the work was laying flat on the table I
would push the work towards the left side stop to create the slot. I
would flip the work and do the same on the other side to create the
other parallel slot.
Mind you I had complete concentration and after making a couple hundred
of these slots in a couple of hours of production routing I was worn out.
As Pat has warned It is not a very safe operation if you are not aware
of what will happen if you don't do every thing correctly.
I can give you a hint that might help.
Make you pieces double length, cut the slot on the first half of the
work, flip the piece end for end and make the other slot. After both
slots are milled, cut the pieces apart into two halves.
This will work if your pieces are not already unique.
Good advice.
This technique isn't inherently more dangerous than most other things we
do.
I would add, however, that it gets more dangerous, the more you do it,
the more repetitions you do. By that I mean you get more comfortable and
you try to do things more quickly after a dozen or so and that's when you
can lose concentration and let your guard down.
--
-MIKE-
"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com
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