Router Table ... not as easy as it looks

Wizard

I have a little mission.
To try and equip myself to build a guitar body (unfinished) in a day.

I have sorted out the neck pocket jig. That's one of the hard bits.

Getting the body shaped exactly ... and the edges routed smoothly was the next step.

I splashed out and bought a high powered Makita router.
I bought a 1/2" flush trim bit.
I got a router insert.
I bought a firm board ... and carefully cut and routed a hole for the insert.
I finally mounted the powerful router, with flush trim bit upside down ... and ready for action.

Last night I thought I'd give it a test.
I have an old neck ... and decided I'd use the neck-end itself to shape a block of wood to be the same shape as the end of the neck.
I drilled some holes in the block to coincide with the holes in the neck and attached it tightly.

I then approached the inverted router bit with the full expectation that the block of wood would ... like butter ... be formed to the same shape as the end of the neck.

The first few seconds went well ...
then ...

WHAM !!!

the router bit "bit" the wood ... and with the router being rather powerful ... ripped the neck out of my hands and flew it across the room.

(is that why they call it a bit?)

I then told myself stories about jumping back on horses ... and tried again.

WHAM !!! the neck flew across the room again.

I am clearly doing something very wrong.
AND I am now kak scared of that thing !!!

Gearhead

does this high powered router have a rev pot?

makepeace

i don't know the extent of your woodworking skills, but from the basics: are you moving the neck and block "with" the direction the bit is spinning? i was always taught that when doing anything with rotating things and wood, you always go against the direction of rotation. i've drawn a silly picture to illustrate what i'm talking about:

Wizard

Gearhead wrote does this high powered router have a rev pot?

Yes it does.
I have it set at a low speed

makepeace wrote i don't know the extent of your woodworking skills, but from the basics: are you moving the neck and block "with" the direction the bit is spinning? i was always taught that when doing anything with rotating things and wood, you always go against the direction of rotation. i've drawn a silly picture to illustrate what i'm talking about:

Ja - I know this is the mistake I'm making.
All goes well when I'm routing on a straight piece ... swimming "upstream" so to speak.
It's when I get to rounding a corner that I'm clearly straying "downstream" ... and getting violently spat down the rapids ...

Warren

LOL, I expected to see some IPs and hops in here... ?

makepeace

some useful literature:

"Typically, you slide the wood from right to left (when looking at the fence from the front). That is an anti-climb cut. You make nearly all cuts this way.

If very careful, you can go a short distance in the opposite direction. But you must hold on tight to avoid kickback and/or injury. This climb cut gives cleaner edges, but you should only attempt it after a lot of experience.

Only do less than 20% of the work this way. You should only use shallow or light cuts. Do NOT take big cuts this way. Only do it when you hands are protected and away from the router bit."

Gearhead

The force on the bit is equal to feedrate times depth times height times wood toughness. Meaning, if you fail to control the cut you must decrease height, depth or feedrate. Makepeace is adressing the feedrate - yeah true but you can't always choose to go against the bit rotation. For instance when you have to choose to go against the grain or not against the rotation, you want to choose going with the grain with the rotation and make shallow cuts. With long grained wood the grain direction is more important, stuff like Meranti lets you go either which way.
My advice to OP is to set the bit lower for a shallow cut, cut the corner down by saw or chisel and rout with the grain around the corner.
On solid bodied guitar bodies, the trick is to choose depth, height and direction for every part of the contour.

---mario---

Hi, some points to consider:
The coarser your wood grain is the finer bit you should use (smaller blade) and run the wood through more times.
Try setting your rotary speed higher, this results in more cuts per time and thus shallower cuts (be careful that your bit doesn't get too hot when working at high speeds or with hard wood as it could burn the wood and make it look crappy)
Since your router is fixed you should move around alot to align the wood optimally, as mentioned. You also need a steady work surface so you could use your weight to hold the wood sturdily (I'd think a guitar neck doesn't make a good enough handle though, try using something else, make small cuts and match it to see what you should do next).
Very important is to never force wood into a powertool, rather have it "chew" the wood at its own pace (It'll also give you an idea to which parts of the wood is harder than others).
Most importantly, don't be scared of the damn thing coz that's when your consentration starts to lack and you're more prone to make mistakes and hurt yourself.
This is all I can think of now that could be wrong, and I've never tried building something with as many complicated curves as a guitar so I hope these points could maybe atleast help remind you of something you're doing wrong ?

Enjoy (post pics when you're done ?)