[niki]

Good day

Not a new idea, I just improved the straight edge positioning so I will not have to measure every time.

The example is made with Melamine for better contrast and at the end I added the "real one".

The router that you see on the pics is Bosch 400W...In American terms, a little bit more than 1/2 HP (1 HP = 746W).

Regards
niki

 

[niki]

 

[Terry McManus]

Niki, thanks for taking the time to put this together. I don't understand the very first slide though. Why do you route some with the face up and some down?

Thanks,
Terry

 

[niki]

Hi Terry

You don't have to do it if you are very sure that your router base is very exactly at 90° to the router bit.

I made it like that so, if there is even very small deviation from 90°, routing the boards from opposite sides will make the sum of the angles 180°. Otherwise, you might have some gap when you put the boards together on a flat surface or, when you glue the boards together they will not come-up flat.

Just to make it more pictorial, lets say that your "router base/bit angle" is 45°, if you route two boards from the same side, when you put both boards on a flat surface you will end-up with a gap of 90° in the middle but, if you turn one board upside-down, the connection will be perfectly flat even though each board angle is 45°.

When I'm routing one board "Up" and one board "Down", I'm compensating for those very small deviations from 90° and getting a perfect glue line and perfect flat glue-up boards.

Regards
niki

 

[TexasTimbers]

Niki this is a great tutorial on some time-tested and proven techniques. The tip about one-up and one-down is usually asscoiated with a straight-off-the-tablesaw cut sans jointing the edge, but still valid for a router or shaper because though unlikely, they can be off a little too. Excellent job! Thanks for posting it.

 

[niki]

Thank you so much TexasTimber

I'm not using the table saw to cut glue line but I use this method with a small variation, when I'm cutting picture frames at 45° with a sled, one left, one right of the saw blade (but I'm sure that you know thit method).

I'm not using the Up and Down method but only after I checked that my router is cutting at 90° to the base plate but, when I post it, I don't know what kind of routers people have. I noticed that some of the cheap, "Made in Chiwan" plunge routers are moving when you exert side pressure (I don't know about the fixed base routers - usually, you can not find them in Europe).

Terry
Make a simple experiment...
Mark two boards with Up and route both of them from the Up side (only one edge of each of them)...
Put them edge-to-edge on a flat surface and check for gap...
Now, turn one of them upside down and check again for gap...
If you don't see any gap in either position, your router bit is set exactly at 90° to the base and you can route all the boards from the same side.

niki