Popular Woodworking 2003-06 № 134, страница 42

immobilize the workpiece to your bench and move the cutting tool over it. In those situations, the router is the tool to use.

Occasionally, you might want to cut a rabbet into an assembly - perhaps a frame for a door or lid. If you use a router, you can wait until the frame is glued up and sanded, then produce the rabbet for a pane of glass or a panel. You do have to square the corners, but that's simple with a chisel.

A major benefit of the hand-held router approach is that you can see the cut as it is formed. On the table saw (and the router table), the work itself conceals the cut.

You can cut rabbets on the router table as well, of course. But I want to focus on hand-held approaches here. Cutting a rabbet on the router table is quite similar to doing it on the table saw with a dado head.

With an edge guide and straight bit, you can customize the rabbet's width, forming it in a series of passes.

Shiplap joint

A rabbeting bit is the commonly used cutter, but it is not the only one that will work. If you use an edge guide to control the cut, you can use a straight bit or a planer bit.

The rabbeting bit is piloted, and the typical bit makes a ³/s"-wide cut. Most manufacturers sell rabbeting sets, which bundle a stack of bearings with the cutter. Want to reduce the cut width? Switch to a larger bearing. The set I have yields six different widths from h" to ¹/8" (no ³/l6"), and with the largest bearing the bit can do flush trimming work.

The piloted bit enables you to rabbet curved edges. You can't do that on the table saw. Making a cut with a piloted rabbeting bit is pretty much a matter of setting the cut depth, switching on the router and diving in. Cut across the grain first, then with the grain. If you are routing only across the grain, either climb-cut in from the corner or clamp a backup scrap at the corner to prevent blowout as the bit exits the work.

One bit with a selection of bearings enables you to cut rabbets of many different widths.

Rabbet-and-groove (or dado) joints

The bit and the bearings do work very well, but I'm often inclined to use an un-piloted bit with an edge guide for rabbeting. I get an infinitely variable cut width with this setup, rather than a few predetermined widths. In addition, I have better control over the tool and the cut.

With a piloted bit alone, the cutting edges begin their work before the bearing makes contact with the edge. All too often, you dip around the corner of the workpiece at one end of the cut or the other. That doesn't happen with an edge-guide-controlled cut because the guide surface extends well beyond the cutter both fore and aft.

Keep the guide in contact with the work-piece edge throughout the feed - beginning before the cut actually starts and continuing until the bit is clear of the work - and you won't run into trouble.

The latter is especially true if you elect to circumvent blowout by climb-cutting in from a corner. The guide gives you the good control needed for a climb cut.

The edge guide is a big help in beginning and ending stopped or blind cuts as well. Brace the tip of the guide against the work-piece edge, shift the whole router as necessary to align the bit for the start of the cut, then pivot the router into the cut. PW

Coming next issue: Bill Hylton shows you the best way to use your power tools to cut half-lap joints, a useful frame-making joint.

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Popular Woodworking June 2003