Planing with a router

[Dave Bagwill]

These guys have a very basic setup

http://youtu.be/bYn_uFTw3NQ

[John Link]

Interesting discussion guys. Exactly why I like to read this forum. The word "sharing" gets overused, I think, but maybe that's because it fits so well. So, thanks for sharing.

I have always thicknessed tops, backs, and sides by hand, even though I own a drum sander that I've never set up (must find room for it). The major reason is I want different thicknesses for different areas - thickest in the upper bout, thinner in the lower, and thinnest along the edges of the lower. But that never relieved me of the need to hog down material to get in the ball park before doing the final precise planing, scraping and sanding. I built a table in which I mounted a router upside down fitted with a 15/16 flat bit and set my (crude) fence at 1 inch stops as I sent the various pieces of wood across. Leaving the 1/16 seems to ensure the cheap router remains stable and does not snipe sideways. I remove this ridge with a scraper. Instead of a vacuum table I use hand pressure from above.

Now that Ken pointed out the MLCS bit I wonder if it might not be the bit, which is just a general purpose flat bottom bit. The first video shows a device that should take out minor warps from one side of a piece of wood, so that it could then be run through a planer with the now flat side as a base, yielding usable stock for any number of projects.

As far as dust goes - routers are infamous for making it; it is a function of how they achieve their smooth cut - there are many ways to deal with it. Just breathing it, as the guys in the video do, is at the very bottom of the list.

In any event, the first video offers a very good way to deal with the thin stock we typically use. Sending it through a planer is something of a crap shoot. This looks like a good, precise way to remove just a smidgen, and do it homogeneously all the way across the wood. It seems much more versatile than the second one.

(In a pact with myself to force setting up the Performax, I tossed the upside down router table I built. Now I'm thinking a variation of the first jig might be just too useful not to build for those things that the drum sander is just a little much for.)

[Paul_M]

Thanks for posting this. I have been trying to think of a simple and inexpensive way to do this with the limited set of tools currently at my disposal. This will fit the bill nicely. As a newbie, I would like to say that this forum in general has been a wealth of information and has already saved me a considerable amount of money in the short time I since I joined.

[Dave Bagwill]

Paul - great to hear from you, I hope you will feel free to post frequently and share what you are doing!

BTW - it's kind of an unwritten rule around here, that if you save any money because of our advice, you send the savings to me to hold in trust for everyone else. Not really. :-)

[Dave Bagwill]

Here's about as simple as it can be. Does it look like a possibly good method?

[ken cierp]

Yes its that simple - makes mess and takes some time, but like he said it works just like a CNC gantry. MDF for the rails s good idea since that material is very consistent in thickness.

[peter havriluk]

Interesting use for a fullsize router in guitar building. For tonewood and soundboards, hot-gluing the wood around its perimeter will allow the wood to stay flat on the table? I fear I'd be dishing the wood.