Popular Woodworking 2004-02 № 139, страница 51

WOODWORKING

ESSENTIALS

BY NICK ENGLER

Router Joinery

Although routers were originally designed to create moulded shapes, they can be excellent joinery tools. In fact, they're better in some ways than table saws, professional-quality mortisers or dado cutters when it comes to cutting joints. There are several reasons routers have an advantage:

• Simplicity: Setting up hand-held or table-mounted routers is rather straightforward. Tools dedicated to joint-making such as hollow-chisel mortisers are more complex and require more time to set up. Sure, it could be worth the effort to use a mortiser if you're planning to make dozens of duplicate joints. But if all you want to cut are a few mortises and tenons, for example, a router will save you loads of time.

• Versatility: You can make a greater variety of joints with a router

PRO TRICK:

Dehumidifier Can Make Your Tenons Fit Tighter

Woodworkers who use mortise-and-tenon joints sometimes keep a dehumidifier in their shop to make it drier than the surrounding environment. Once in the shop, wood shrinks slightly. Then, when a completed project is returned to normal humidity, the tenons swell in the mortises, making the joints tighter.

than with any other joinery tool. No matter if you have a fixed-base or plunge router, you can cut more types of joints than with any other kind of tool.

• Accuracy: There isn't a more precise joinery tool. You may find tools just as accurate, but none that surpass the router. Because routers cut quickly, they leave a smooth surface, meaning joints fit better and bonds are stronger.

There are some disadvantages to using your router for joint-making, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them:

• Most routers won't stand up to continual cutting as well as heavy-duty woodworking machinery.

• Because you can't make deep cuts in a single pass on a router, it may take you longer to rout some joints than it would to use a mortiser or dado cutter.

• Depending on the joint you want to make, you may be limited by the sizes and configurations of available bits.

These shortcomings, however, are minor. Routers are indispensable joinery tools in any workshop.