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Noob Builder Question – Router Table Woes
Hey y’all. So I’m pretty new to woodworking and electric guitar making. A couple weeks ago I bought a nice amana spiral bit for use with a router table for shaping the body (it has the bearings at the end of the bit). Here’s the scenario:
– Black limba blank
– We used a band saw to get the shape very close to the body template.
– with the help of a couple of experienced wood workers, we tried to finish shaping the body with a router table. We attempted a few different entry points and made sure to respect the correct feed direction
– we used a fairly high RPM (which I have since learned is actually not ideal)Even with all these precautions the router would immediately grab the blank and basically throw it. We fortunately were able to salvage the nice blank but I’d love y’alls help to make this into a learning experience. So here are my questions:
– Is the router table less than ideal for body shaping? If so, then that’s my only question 🙂 Because I’m pretty comfortable with a hand router and just taking many many passes.
– If the router table is a smart solution for this: what should I do to avoid this problem and be able to get back on that horse. Is it the wood? the rpms? all of the things?Thanks for considering.
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7 Replies
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I exclusively route bodies by hand and never use a table for it for the same reasons mentioned above. It’s just not worth wasting a body blank over and ensures me an error free route. I take off small bits of wood only and take it careful where grain direction changes. If you save body off cut pieces of the same thickness they work great to ensure your router won’t tip too.
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Cool – I just recently learned that trick with the off cuts. It’s really great! We also made a platform for the blank that attaches to the vise so we can route without having to move clamps around. It’s works really well.
Ok, so it’s sounding more and more like the hand router is the big winner.
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This is a remarkable video explaining kickback using high speed photography about how compression bits help prevent kickback and tearout: ithttps://youtu.be/titM-kmfu-g?feature=shared
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That was a great video. Thanks. I’m still a bit perplexed because we used a really nice spiral bit, and followed pretty much all of those suggestions. There are 3 factors I can currently think of that led to this kick back:
1. Black limba has inconsistent density.2. We were spinning too fast. I learned later that slower is better.
3. From that video: Our bit needed to be a 3/4″ instead of 1/2″ so it could take the vibration better.
Thoughts?
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I route thinner material for acoustic builds so I dont have much to add except to map out the grain direction before you start, chalk works good for that. Also, a fulcrum/ starting pin can be useful to stabilize your work piece. Here is a video from Woodpeckers that illustrates the use of a fulcrum point. Many router table inserts provide a threaded hole for that purpose: https://youtu.be/1g9IjIj1tdM
youtu.be
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This might be a good thing to look at on a Zoom call. There are a lot of variables going on here.
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Should I call in on thursday night? I’ll be at the maker space and can show what we did. I don’t have any thing I can actually cut but I can show the tools and the technique.
thoughts?
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