Is this a good idea? I was going to get a 25mm wide straight cut bit (the widest I could find) to use on some 2" wide rough cut beams.
Routing a flat surface
- Thread starter men8ifr
- Start date
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not shure i understand your idea!!
to level large areas planer belt sander
to straighten an edge/cut to width circular saw/table saw
if you need a specific size off wood your wood yard will cut it for you all you wil pay for is the stock size used
to level large areas planer belt sander
to straighten an edge/cut to width circular saw/table saw
if you need a specific size off wood your wood yard will cut it for you all you wil pay for is the stock size used
I don't understand either 
Are you trying to make all edges flat and smooth or are you trying to square an end off.
More info please
Are you trying to make all edges flat and smooth or are you trying to square an end off.
More info please
I'm trying to make the surface smooth and to match some routed radius corners I wanted to put on the same wood.
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assuming you mean the edge its far easier with a table or circular saw and sander providing you dont have a rip blade even then probably still easier
with a router you can only cut half the shank in one pass in other words if your cutter is captive with wood on both sides off the cutter[cutting a trench] and you have a 6.35 shank and you have 21mm to cut you have to do 7x3.1mm passes
with a router you can only cut half the shank in one pass in other words if your cutter is captive with wood on both sides off the cutter[cutting a trench] and you have a 6.35 shank and you have 21mm to cut you have to do 7x3.1mm passes
There is 2" to cut and I found a large diameter (30mm I think) straight cutter on ebay so would need 2 passes which should be faster than cutting and sanding to get the equivelent finish though I do think I would have that problem that as I cut material away there is nothing left to properly rest the router on....
men - when you wrote: "... that as I cut material away there is nothing left to properly rest the router on...." you illustrated the problem of this method of producing a flat surface with a router - nothing for the router to bear on unless you straddle the timber with a couple of battens to act as rails. If you haven't got much to do then buy an electric plane (cheapo maybe). The other thing to remember when using a router is the larger the cutter the less control you have when holding the tool - hence the use of router tables for big size cutters; consider getting a cheapo router table or fashion one from a sheet of ply or mdf for the duration.
Apologies if I'm not understanding properly, but what I'm interpreting is that you want to take 2" (50 mm) thickness off the wide face of a board with a really big router cutter. Is that correct? If so, a few things.
- As noted, it's in your best interests (for all kinds of reasons) to take small amounts of material off in a pass.
- To spin a large cutter like that requires a big router. My suspicion is that it would kill a cheapo machine. There's not that much advantage to having such a large cutter. (And it would probably be expensive...)
- If the reference face of the wood isn't flat, then this method will reproduce that out-of-flat-ness in your finished work.
Again, I might be misinterpreting, but this doesn't sound like good use of a router.
If you had to do it with a router, you'd probably want to cut a bunch of grooves with ridges between that would support the router in subsequent passes. (Hint: don't leave a ridge at the very edge...) Then you'd shave off the ridges with a chisel/plane/whatever. Since you have a lot of material to remove, this would be a multiple step operation (and a really boring one, at that).
The handheld planer idea is a good one. Again, take smallish bites. If you found someone that owned a thickness planer and convinced them that there wasn't any foreign objects in your wood, then they might do the job for you.
Good luck!
Nigel
- As noted, it's in your best interests (for all kinds of reasons) to take small amounts of material off in a pass.
- To spin a large cutter like that requires a big router. My suspicion is that it would kill a cheapo machine. There's not that much advantage to having such a large cutter. (And it would probably be expensive...)
- If the reference face of the wood isn't flat, then this method will reproduce that out-of-flat-ness in your finished work.
Again, I might be misinterpreting, but this doesn't sound like good use of a router.
If you had to do it with a router, you'd probably want to cut a bunch of grooves with ridges between that would support the router in subsequent passes. (Hint: don't leave a ridge at the very edge...) Then you'd shave off the ridges with a chisel/plane/whatever. Since you have a lot of material to remove, this would be a multiple step operation (and a really boring one, at that).
The handheld planer idea is a good one. Again, take smallish bites. If you found someone that owned a thickness planer and convinced them that there wasn't any foreign objects in your wood, then they might do the job for you.
Good luck!
Nigel
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