How to Use A Wood Router | Picked By Experienced Woodworker

How to Use A Wood Router

How to Use A Wood Router

A wood router is, undoubtedly, one of the most efficient and versatile power tools. Once you learn the art of using a wood router, you will feel like the king of the woodworking world. There’re hardly any woodworking jobs that wood router can’t perform.

From cutting edges to make them look fancy yet useful to routing box joints, a wood router is the jack of all trades. But there’s a precondition to it. First, you need to know how to use a wood router properly. Although, performing different tasks, need different routing technique, there’re some basics that you can’t ignore.

Today, we are going to reveal the basics of using a wood router appropriately to gain the most profit from the prolific power tool. We will also describe the necessary precautions for using a wood router without any danger.

A General Guideline on The Use of a Wood Router:

The wood router may be used for a variety of works. You can use the handy power tool to cut, trim, shape, and edge different materials. These broadly include wood, plastic, hard metals, and many more. The best use of a wood router is to shape and edge various woodworking router projects for beginners to get a quality and finished product.

Knowing the technique of using different types of wood router will enable one to perform a massive range of woodworking tasks. Moreover, it will lessen his workload and fasten his work at the same time. Such is the advantage of a wood router.

This brings us to the all-important point of learning the use of this versatile and utility power tool. Although the technique may vary from router to router and project to project, the general guideline for routing edges is described below.

Wood Edge Routing Techniques

The primary foundation of more or less all types of woodworking jobs is to create different shapes of either plywood or wood. The shaping of timber is mainly done for two different purposes-

  • Practical purposes
  • Aesthetical height of woodwork.

Woodworkers prefer edging wood so that they may get a trace of the project outline. It lessens their workload quite substantially. Furthermore, different shapes allow skilled woodworkers to create different creative designs on the furniture. It increases aesthetics.

Not to mention that a wood router is a handy tool to cut shapes with the pinpoint precision that adds incredible accuracy to your furniture. Thus, these flawless edges are used to create rabbets and dadoes. But, at first, you need to learn how to develop such impeccable edges with your regular wood router.

The Process Is Described in The Following Steps

  1. At first, ensure that the router bit is sharp and free of any speck of dust. The sharpness of the router bit will largely determine how accurate your wood edging will be.
  2. It would help if you kept the direction of your wood router in the opposite direction of a clock. That means the route should be from the left towards the right side, instead of the regular clockwise direction. This will suit your routing task more than the daily clockwise direction.
  3. The workpiece, along with the router bit stays close to you as you perform the counter-clockwise direction while your router the edges. Since the workpiece doesn’t push against you, your routine will become easy and comfortable.
  4. Many woodworkers and artisans complain that wood chips away from the workpiece near the corner. It spoils their hard work or at least, reduces the quality of their routine task. How pathetic! We have an incredible solution to it. We recommend you to use climb cutting to nullify the effect of wood chipping away. It will help you remarkably.
  5. While you perform the climb cutting, make sure that you don’t overdo it. You will only require to cut a few inches on both the corner of the workpiece. Also, make sure that the cut doesn’t reach more depth than your required thickness. It will spoil all your development. So, stay on your toes while performing the climb cutting.
  6. Once you are satisfied with the chipping problem of your workpiece, its time to move forward. Now, begin your routing task, just like any other regular wood routing process. Remember that you need to perform the routing in a counter-clockwise direction.

Congratulations. You have successfully created your first wood edge using a router. As you see, the wood edging process is quite simple and convenient. It doesn’t require you to put a lot of effort and time. However, you need to follow one basic rule strictly as you use your wood router .

The Rule Is:

While you cut inner parts of wood such as the picture frame, the wood router should follow a clockwise direction. On the contrary, for routing outer edges as we mentioned on the above, the router direction should be anti-clockwise.

If you understand the aforementioned basic technique of creating wood edges with a wood router, you can later develop your skill to use the router for a wide range of routine jobs. Some of them are-

  • Box and drawer making: Wood router is a convenient tool to create the even and smooth surface of drawers and boxes. Furthermore, the wood router helps woodworkers achieve optimal perfection in their drawer and box creation.
  • Create dadoes with perfection: Dadoes provide excellent support to each corner of a cabinet. Expert artisans comment that dadoes are the most substantial support for the cabinet and shelves. Creating dadoes with a router and router bit is as easy as anything you will get. The process is almost identical to the edge routing. The only difference is that you need to create traces on the exact points with a pencil where you want your dadoes to make.
  • Rabbet cutting: For beginners, the best use of a wood router is to know how to make a rabbet cut. You will have to buy a set of rabbet bits to make the rabbet cut. The process is identical to edging and comfortable also.

Conclusive Words

A wood router is meant to accomplish major woodworking router projects for beginners . Hence, the brief guideline on how to use a wood router will be incredibly handy for both the experts and professionals.

We aspire high to provide you with the best and smoothest woodworking experience using a different power tool like the wood router. So, let us know which power tool use you want to know next from us.

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