Naïve questions - using 12.7mm 1/2" router bit on laminate kitchen worktop joints

Discussion in 'Carpenters' Talk' started by fizzy2, Nov 22, 2021.

  1. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    Honestly - you’re completely over-thinking this. Cutters, saw blades, sanding sheets are consumable items. They get used and they wear out. Some items like saw blades can be resharpened, so that’s what happens. Blokes like me and KF1 build the cost of all these overheads into the price of our jobs.

    It’s your money, your time and your project, just do what works for you.
     
  2. fizzy2

    fizzy2 Guest

    Thanks, but with all due respect, you're missing my question, even it it is over-thinking. I'm asking specifically if the 'principle' of the logic work, even if you wouldn't bother, for whatever that reason might be?
     
  3. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    Yes. It will work.
     
  4. Tilt

    Tilt Screwfix Select

    You must be quite well off.............. but VERY TIRED, Lol.
     
  5. Tilt

    Tilt Screwfix Select

    I prefer the KWO versofix 69420 bit with replaceable double sided blades.

    The blades were normally £11 each but I kept in contact with the supplier at my old place of work and he did them for £8 each for me. Supplied me the bit also.

    The blades last ages but I always swap it out for a bog standard 37mm Trend bit for the bolt holes.

    My router's depth stop is already pre set for this too, as I suspect most guys do this also.
     
  6. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    Used the Trend blades this morning @woodbutcherbower. As you said, can't tell any difference between them and the Festool blades. Certainly a very large difference to the wallet though, that's for sure :)
     
  7. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    Good stuff, glad they hit the spot for you as well. They instantly became my go-to.

    BTW - all my heartfelt and hugely complimentary posts about the lovely Bryony were deleted by admin for being 'misogynistic' :rolleyes:
     
  8. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    @kitfit1 Roto-tip and a pack of blades landed this morning. Since it was a steady day, I had a try-out shaving off 10mm strips from a 1-metre length of left-over American Black Walnut worktop across the endgrain, using a parallel guide. Must have shaved off 100mm in total. Zero perceptible difference to the quality of cut from the first to the last. Brilliant. Thanks for the heads-up mate, no guesses as to what I'll be using from now on .....
     
  9. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    Just using one side of the blade i hope lol ? Not only that, when a blade starts to "dull" you can feel it by how much pressure you have to use to move the router. When it gets to the point that you have to move your feet, that's the time to flip the blade.
     
  10. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    Yes, just one single edge. I was already prepared to get the crowbar out to start levering the router along the cut - but not necessary. Can't believe I've never bothered with this before. Might have another go at the weekend to see just how much abuse one edge can take :)
     
  11. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    Do you know what, would be interesting to see what you can find. I'll tell you this much though from my experience. A box of 10 blades last's me just under a year, maybe 10 or 11 months. That includes solid timber, laminate, Acrylic and not very often solid laminate. So a good mix. If i needed to, i'd happily buy another 10 blades............but never needed to.
     
  12. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    I'll give it a shot with the walnut this weekend and report back @kitfit1.

    It's almost tempting to take a punt on a short length of Duropal and see how the blade edges fare on;

    Old tractor tyres, bits of crushed pram, Derbyshire millstone grindings, ex-Lemmy Kilminster jacket studs and cowboy hat, MOT Type 1, Desperate Dan's chin shavings, a 1950's Bakelite radio complete with valves and transformers, Wirtgen road planings coated with bits of Tarmac, Ogden's pork scratchings (a Derbyshire thing - you wouldn't understand), Rick Parfitt's (RIP) mega-gauge barbed-wire guitar string offcuts, vitrified hippopotamus haemorrhoids, remnants of Hatton Gardens Hilti DD350 core drillings, Stegosaurus teeth, bits of ground-up anus off that stone bloke out of 'The Fantastic Four', shattered ex-Blackpool-Tower 'walk of faith' 100mm safety glass, Dalek helmets, bits of that meteorite which landed in Siberia, four sheets of Travis Perkins 'premium quality' OSB, Mount Etna, broken door hinges off Gordon Peters taxi in Bournemouth, a pile of discarded, blunt-as-F Festool 160 x 20 x 2.2 blades, several sofas, a truckload of pallets, the legendary (but now fossilised) **** produced by Randy in South Park (hot-hot-hot-hot-hot), a few Fred Dibnah chimney fellings, complete with a melted sheet of Roswell alien Unobtainium bonded on top.

    That covers at least 1% of the contents. I'll let you know how I get on with the other 99%.

     
  13. fizzy2

    fizzy2 Guest

    Another naive question... with these single edge blades, do you have to sweep the router slower to avoid the wavy edge that you sometimes see on routed surfaces or do you increase the rotation speed to compensate?
     
  14. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    A routered edge should be laser-straight. I've never seen a a wavy edge. Full speed, and gently does it. Let the machine and the cutter do the work. And BTW - it's a 'pass', not a 'sweep'. A sweep is what you do with a brush. Unless you're an electrician.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2021
  15. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    Nah, Fred was a true professional................he would never have left enough for even Duropal to be able to salvage for a worktop :D:D:D:D
     
  16. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    I really have a problem with why you are asking these questions ? Use a proper powerful router and none of the rubbish questions and answers to non existant problems you seem to be creating would come up. Are you using some cheap palm router and expecting it to route a 40mm bit of oak ? It won't is the answer, in case you are asking that.
     
  17. candoabitofmoststuff

    candoabitofmoststuff Screwfix Select

    I take 3 or 4 times as long!
    Cando
     
  18. fizzy2

    fizzy2 Guest

    I have never used a router and I'm trying to learn before I do use so. I want to avoid the rubbish finish that you see throughout the industry. The wavy lines that i'm referring to are are a genuine issue that definitely exists. I have seen them on professionally/commercially produced finished surfaces, whether it be mdf kitchen doors, mouldings, skirting etc. It can be difficult to see on dull/texture surfaces, and much easier to see on glossy/wrapped surfaces where the lines show in the light/reflections.

    I assume that one cause is that the blade of a plane or router etc is NOT continually cutting. As the blade finishes one cut, the tool is moved along the workpiece before doing another cut. Furthermore, because the tool is actually moving linearly whilst performing each cut, each radius of the cut is elongated (like the longer side of an ellipse). This leaves the surface with a series of parallel ridge lines. The hope is that you move the tool slow enough across the cut surface, to make all the discreet cuts so close together, that the each elliptical cut/ridge becomes invisible to the naked eye (clearly not achieved on many rapidly produced commercial products).

    Now, if the lines are 0.25mm apart on a 4 flute blade, they will become 1mm apart on a 1 flute blade (when the tool is moved at the same speed) and the ridges will become more pronounced. So you'd have to move the tool at quarter speed to get the same number of lines and gap between discreet cuts. It may be that you move your router so slowly, that you can't see these lines, however many blades/cutting edges are on your bit.

    I once saw a carpenter at my place of work who was unhappy with the finish of his electric plane because one of the two blades was damaged. He told me that he'd come back the next day with a new blade. I told him to remove the damaged blade and try again, but it left ridge lines. I told him to move the plane at half speed and he was amazed that the lines didn't appear. A city in guilds carpenter of 30 years experience!

    You are unlikely to observe these lines if you are concealing / compressing them within a joint.

    I don't think that I'm teaching you anything here - just explaining that the issue is real. It's not the quality and size of your tool that matter here, it the way you use it!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 26, 2021
  19. fizzy2

    fizzy2 Guest

    I agree with 'gently' does it. It's just that you need to be more gentle with fewer cutting edges - surely?

    Actually a 'sweep' motion is universally used to describe a motion or route that goes from one location to another in a methodical path, often with a different route to get back to the starting point.
    There's a team sweeping the park looking for clues...
    We're sweeping the block looking for intruders
    The sweeping of a golf club
    The sweeping of a broom (the brush stroke & return stroke)
    The sweeping of a shaping machine (quicker action return above the work piece)
    The sweeping a plane or router (the cut pass plus the return to the start)
    Stop making sweeping statements!
     
  20. woodbutcherbower

    woodbutcherbower Screwfix Select

    The only wavy lines I’ve ever seen on any piece of timber is on flat stock which has been passed through a planer/thicknesser/jointer with either poorly adjusted or blunt blades. It’s called ‘chatter’ and is sanded out during normal material prep.

    As for the above diatribe - I can’t quite believe what I just read. Wavy lines on a routered edge caused by the cutter edge moving along the workpiece ?? Really ??

    I use three different routers during my course of work - a half-inch for big heavy stuff, a quarter-inch for more delicate stuff, and a palm router for trimming, rounding-over etc. I don’t have all the specs to hand, but do I know that the max speed of my main one (Festool OF2200) is 22,000 rpm. That’s 366 cuts per second - or 732 cuts per second using a two-flute cutter. Moving the router at a normal slowish pace (say 100mm every 3 seconds) results in 2,196 cuts per 100mm, or just under 22 cutting slices for every mm.

    And you can SEE those ?? I’d suggest a phone call to NASA. I hear they’re looking for a replacement for the Hubble space telescope. I’m afraid I won’t be contributing anything else to this discussion - it’s been my endless experience that amateurs always, always know best. I wish you good fortune in all your endeavours. Over and out.
     

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