In article , (ississauga) wrote:
I want to buy the premade oak stair treads (steps) and use a half inch
router to smooth the edges, will this work? The front part of the
tread is already rounded but my customer wants the sides rounded too.
People told me the router will burn the wood because oak is hard, is
there a trick to rounding without burning?

No "trick" really, just good routing practices:
1) Keep your cut depth shallow. Don't try to take off too much wood in one
pass. Remember that, with a roundover bit like you'll be using, as you lower
the bit, each pass takes off a lot more wood than the previous pass. So for
your first pass, you might be able to lower the bit as much as 1/8" -- but for
the second and third passes, no more than 1/16", and for subsequent passes,
you should probably limit it to 1/32".
2) Keep the router moving fairly quickly. If you move it too slowly, the wood
will burn.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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