Qx - How to Clean Up a Routed Inlet
 

Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.

Is there a router bit that acts like a sander, that is, not real
aggressive, but can be used on sides of a cut to clean them up? Cuts
are only about 3/8 deep and I've tried sanding by hand and scraping
with my gunsmithing scrapers, but to no avail.

Reason for asking:

Wandered by my local purveyor of curly wood Saturday. Searching
through the scrap pile when one of the folks working there guided me
to three hunks (flitches) of maple. Seems he was a fiddle/guitar
maker. He said these 24" X 6-8" X 1" would finish up really nice for
small work. WTH, $10 for 3 pieces.

Planed off one Sunday AM and he was right - pretty wood. Decided a
quick rout to make a free hand nut tray would work. Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

Results of free hand rout are at

http://web2.airmail.net/xleanone/index.html/Tray/

The images are 250 - 400 KB, so if you're on dial up you may want to
pass.

Last 2 pics are bottom of tray, just planed. All wiped with mineral
spirits to show figure, color balance adjusted to 5250 to reduce flash
effect.

All the cut sides are burned pretty badly.Bad technique and maybe a
questionable bit.

BTW, the wood is really pretty. Big Leaf maple and great figure, but
boy, what a PITA to plane! Ron Knight has my 50 degree smoother on
order (at 1/2 price!) for this kind of stuff!

Any suggestions appreciated.

Regards.

Tom

Tom Banes wrote:
Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.

Is there a router bit that acts like a sander, that is, not real
aggressive, but can be used on sides of a cut to clean them up? Cuts
are only about 3/8 deep and I've tried sanding by hand and scraping
with my gunsmithing scrapers, but to no avail.

Reason for asking:

Wandered by my local purveyor of curly wood Saturday. Searching
through the scrap pile when one of the folks working there guided me
to three hunks (flitches) of maple. Seems he was a fiddle/guitar
maker. He said these 24" X 6-8" X 1" would finish up really nice for
small work. WTH, $10 for 3 pieces.

Planed off one Sunday AM and he was right - pretty wood. Decided a
quick rout to make a free hand nut tray would work. Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

Results of free hand rout are at

http://web2.airmail.net/xleanone/index.html/Tray/

The images are 250 - 400 KB, so if you're on dial up you may want to
pass.

Last 2 pics are bottom of tray, just planed. All wiped with mineral
spirits to show figure, color balance adjusted to 5250 to reduce flash
effect.

All the cut sides are burned pretty badly.Bad technique and maybe a
questionable bit.

BTW, the wood is really pretty. Big Leaf maple and great figure, but
boy, what a PITA to plane! Ron Knight has my 50 degree smoother on
order (at 1/2 price!) for this kind of stuff!

Any suggestions appreciated.

Regards.

Tom
G'day Tom,
I would suggest that you try a small sanding drum, preferably in a
dremel type machine if you have one, if not a cordless drill with the
drum should do the trick. Just use a slow speed and take your time. You
can pick up the drums and sleeves pretty cheaply.
All the best
John

I would try a little bleach .


"Tom Banes" wrote in message
...
Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.

Is there a router bit that acts like a sander, that is, not real
aggressive, but can be used on sides of a cut to clean them up? Cuts
are only about 3/8 deep and I've tried sanding by hand and scraping
with my gunsmithing scrapers, but to no avail.

Reason for asking:

Wandered by my local purveyor of curly wood Saturday. Searching
through the scrap pile when one of the folks working there guided me
to three hunks (flitches) of maple. Seems he was a fiddle/guitar
maker. He said these 24" X 6-8" X 1" would finish up really nice for
small work. WTH, $10 for 3 pieces.

Planed off one Sunday AM and he was right - pretty wood. Decided a
quick rout to make a free hand nut tray would work. Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

Results of free hand rout are at

http://web2.airmail.net/xleanone/index.html/Tray/

The images are 250 - 400 KB, so if you're on dial up you may want to
pass.

Last 2 pics are bottom of tray, just planed. All wiped with mineral
spirits to show figure, color balance adjusted to 5250 to reduce flash
effect.

All the cut sides are burned pretty badly.Bad technique and maybe a
questionable bit.

BTW, the wood is really pretty. Big Leaf maple and great figure, but
boy, what a PITA to plane! Ron Knight has my 50 degree smoother on
order (at 1/2 price!) for this kind of stuff!

Any suggestions appreciated.

Regards.

Tom

Sanding drum in drill press? the DP will keep the drum vertical,
preventing the edge of the sleeve from gouging the piece.

woodworker88 wrote:
Sanding drum in drill press? the DP will keep the drum vertical,
preventing the edge of the sleeve from gouging the piece.



As an alternate, you can use a 60 grit flap wheel in either a drill
press or a hand held drill motor.

Lew

woodworker88 wrote:
Sanding drum in drill press? the DP will keep the drum vertical,
preventing the edge of the sleeve from gouging the piece.

Duh, Why didn't I think of that ;)
John

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 21:02:12 -0500, Tom Banes
wrote:

Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.

Wandered by my local purveyor of curly wood Saturday. Searching
through the scrap pile when one of the folks working there guided me
to three hunks (flitches) of maple. Seems he was a fiddle/guitar
maker. He said these 24" X 6-8" X 1" would finish up really nice for
small work. WTH, $10 for 3 pieces.

Nice drive-by gloat.

Planed off one Sunday AM and he was right - pretty wood. Decided a
quick rout to make a free hand nut tray would work. Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

FWIW, that's a nice enough hunk of maple that it may be worth it to
just buy another, higher-quality bit and just carefully take a little
more off with that. If it was some kind of oddball bit, it might not
be worthwhile, but a straight one is always useful. You could sand
it, I'm sure, but it'd be tough and not likely to look as good as a
really nice finishing pass with the router.

Prometheus wrote:
On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 21:02:12 -0500, Tom Banes
wrote:

Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.....Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

FWIW, that's a nice enough hunk of maple that it may be worth it to
just buy another, higher-quality bit and just carefully take a little
more off with that. If it was some kind of oddball bit, it might not
be worthwhile, but a straight one is always useful. You could sand
it, I'm sure, but it'd be tough and not likely to look as good as a
really nice finishing pass with the router.

my thought was that the next bit would be a ball nose carbide end mill
(core box bit style), 1/4" diameter, in the laminate trimmer, with a
base that rides on the floor of the tray and limits the horizontal
depth of cut to the radius of the bit. this will give you a rounded
inside corner as it cleans up the burn marks.

On 2 Aug 2005 20:07:24 -0700, "bridger" wrote:


Prometheus wrote:
On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 21:02:12 -0500, Tom Banes
wrote:

Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.....Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.

FWIW, that's a nice enough hunk of maple that it may be worth it to
just buy another, higher-quality bit and just carefully take a little
more off with that. If it was some kind of oddball bit, it might not
be worthwhile, but a straight one is always useful. You could sand
it, I'm sure, but it'd be tough and not likely to look as good as a
really nice finishing pass with the router.

my thought was that the next bit would be a ball nose carbide end mill
(core box bit style), 1/4" diameter, in the laminate trimmer, with a
base that rides on the floor of the tray and limits the horizontal
depth of cut to the radius of the bit. this will give you a rounded
inside corner as it cleans up the burn marks.

Thanks to all for the ideas.

Last night I combined a couple and used a Dremel with a sanding drum
(1/4" size) and a Dremel drill press that has been taking up space
without use for years (SWMBO wanted one for some craft project that
never got started ~ ). Working at lowest speed on the Dremel seemed
OK, but still not what I wanted. I can't get the horizontal/vertical
interface cleaned up without the drum hitting the bottom and burnining
it.

Next step is to try the ball nose bit suggestion from prometheus.
Question I have is about the base to limit depth of cut. Horizontal I
can figure - flush trim style. The part that has me lost is the "base
that rides on the floor". Is this something that a laminate trimmer
has that a router doesn't? Sorry, I've never seen a laminate trimmer
and don't know.

Regards.

Tom Banes wrote:

Botched a quicky piece this weekend and trying to figure out if
there's a fix.....Only carbide
straight bit I had was a ?? old 1/2 incher from Sears. Not burned -
but.


Prometheus wrote:
FWIW, that's a nice enough hunk of maple that it may be worth it to
just buy another, higher-quality bit and just carefully take a little
more off with that. If it was some kind of oddball bit, it might not
be worthwhile, but a straight one is always useful. You could sand
it, I'm sure, but it'd be tough and not likely to look as good as a
really nice finishing pass with the router.



bridger wrote:
my thought was that the next bit would be a ball nose carbide end mill
(core box bit style), 1/4" diameter, in the laminate trimmer, with a
base that rides on the floor of the tray and limits the horizontal
depth of cut to the radius of the bit. this will give you a rounded
inside corner as it cleans up the burn marks.


Tom Banes wrote:
Thanks to all for the ideas.

Last night I combined a couple and used a Dremel with a sanding drum
(1/4" size) and a Dremel drill press that has been taking up space
without use for years (SWMBO wanted one for some craft project that
never got started ~ ). Working at lowest speed on the Dremel seemed
OK, but still not what I wanted. I can't get the horizontal/vertical
interface cleaned up without the drum hitting the bottom and burnining
it.

Next step is to try the ball nose bit suggestion from prometheus.

that was me, not Prometheus.
here's what the bit looks like:
http://www.american-carbide.com/EndMills/LLBEM.aspx?SubCategoryID=4&selection=3&Cat=1
the sub-base is something you'll build yourself. it goes like this...
get a piece of stuff- plywood or melamine or something like it that is
about the size of your router/trimmer base and slightly thicker than
your tray is deep. drill a hole near the corner of the piece, the size
of your ball nose bit(1/4"). mount the ball nose bit in the router and
adjust it so the bit extends below the base a little. with the router
unplugged and the factory sub-base removed slip the bit into the hole
you drilled. find a location where it seems like you will be able to
handle the router comfortably and reach the switch easily or whatever
and mark the mounting hole locations for the base on the new sub-base.
drill the holes in the sub-base and mount it to the router. try the bit
through the hole. if it binds you may need to adjust the hole a bit.
now, flip the router upside down and with the bit protruding a little
below the sub-base, lay a ruler flat on the sub-base and mark out a
line tangent to the bit, clipping the corner, between the bit and the
corner. now retract the bit into the router and mark out a second line
parallel to the first to the amount of horizontal bite you want the
cutter to take. if you want the resulting fillet cut to fair out
smoothly with the bottom of your tray, that amount would be 1/8" remove
the sub-base, cut the second line, remount the sub-base.

so you now have a chunk of plywood screwed to the bottom of your
router. it has a corner cut off. the corner cut also removed part of
the hole where the router bit sticks out. if you adjust the bit depth
so that the tip of the ball end just barely or even not quite reaches
the bottom surface of your sub-base, the only cutting it can do is from
the side, and the amount of that cut is limited by the corner cut
surface of the sub-base. if you are cutting into concave curves (you
are) you may need that corner cut to be rounded rather than straight.
just be sure that the amount of bit left exposed doesn't exceed the cut
you wish to take.



Question I have is about the base to limit depth of cut. Horizontal I
can figure - flush trim style.

nope. see above.



The part that has me lost is the "base
that rides on the floor". Is this something that a laminate trimmer
has that a router doesn't? Sorry, I've never seen a laminate trimmer
and don't know.

a laminate trimmer is just a small router. meant for one handed use,
they take only 1/4" bits, run at extra high RPMs and until recently
came only in single speed models. here's what mine looks like:
http://www.portercable.com/index.asp?e=847&t=p&p=2836

On 4 Aug 2005 09:52:20 -0700, "bridger" wrote:


bridger wrote:
my thought was that the next bit would be a ball nose carbide end mill
(core box bit style), 1/4" diameter, in the laminate trimmer, with a
base that rides on the floor of the tray and limits the horizontal
depth of cut to the radius of the bit. this will give you a rounded
inside corner as it cleans up the burn marks.



that was me, not Prometheus.
here's what the bit looks like:
http://www.american-carbide.com/EndMills/LLBEM.aspx?SubCategoryID=4&selection=3&Cat=1
SNIP

Thanks Bridger, sorry I lost the thread and blamed Prometheus.

Reading your explanation, I've go the idea. Kinda neat. I may give it
a whirl this weekend.

Once again, many thanks.

Regards.

Tom