How to Plunge Cut With a Hand Wood Router
A router is a tool that has a vertical spindle and cutter that is used to hollow out the surface of a wooden or metallic material. It is commonly made of wood or plastic. A router is mainly used in carpentry, especially in making cabinets and other woodworking.
Hand wood is the most traditional form of a router. Although some woodworkers prefer this, there are other new variations of routers that exist because of new technologies incorporated.
However, according to most woodworkers, hand wood router has more advantages because they consider it as a versatile tool for woodworking.
What are the Cuts and Designs That You Can Create With a Hand Wood Router?
- Ripping
- Routing
- Rabbet
- Crosscutting
- Dados
- Grooves
- Trimming
- Dovetails
- Mortises and Tenons
- Hanging Slots
- Patterns
- Wood Surfacing
- Building Raised Panel Doors
- Circles
- Plunge Cut
The plunge cut is considered as the most severe cuts especially when you don’t have a router. It takes training and practice to create a clean cut.
How to Create a Plunge Cut
Choose the right kind of router
The best router should have a reasonable price without sacrificing the product’s quality. The router’s motor is the most important part of the tool. Buy the one that has high horsepower as much as possible. Remember that a small motor’s hard to work with and will only give you a hard time.
There are two types of routers, the larger production router, and the smaller trim router. The larger production routers include the router styles, the standard, and the plunge routers. Both of these styles can create a plunge cut, but it will be easy to apply a plunge router style for this job.
The other type of routers called the smaller trim router. The smaller trim routers are not designed to be used for heavy tasks because they contain less power and a smaller motor. It is ideal of light woodworking tasks and for trimming laminate.
Use the right type of router bit
There are some router bits that you can use, and each has specific functions.
Ask a professional woodworker or read the uses of each router bits as this can help ensure that you’re using the one that is designed to make a plunge cut.
Different kinds of router bits
Rounding-Over Bit
This bit is used to round a sharp edge. It is commonly used at the edges of table tops and shelves. A ball-bearing pilot is used along with this bit to control the width when cutting.
Straight-Cutting Bit
This is a non-piloted bit used to create rabbets, grooves, and dadoes for the material used in making cabinet backs and drawer bottoms.
A pilot serves as a guide for a bit to keep it in place. This can be used for plunge cutting.
Roman Ogee Bit
The Roman ogee bit is the unique among the other types of bit. It can create decorative details on the edges of tabletops, vertical stiles and the like. Just like the rounding-over bit, Roman ogee bit uses a pivot as a guide to control the width of a cut.
Rabbeting Bit
A Rabetting bit creates an L-shaped notch at the edge of the material. This bit creates prominent width and depth that makes it an ideal bit to create a rabbet.
Cove Bit
A Cove bit creates a concave radius on edge, which is opposite to what a rounding-over bit does. It is commonly used for doors and furniture legs.
Core Box Bit
A core box bit is another non-pivoted bit that creates round-bottomed grooves. It is used to design a column and vertical stiles.
Degree Chamfer Bit
This bit is used to create V-shaped grooves in between boards.
Flush Trim Bit
A Flush trim bit is commonly used for creating plastic-laminated counters and tabletops.
45-Degree Chamfer Bit
This is used to remove the sharp corners of tabletops, shelves, and the like.
Slot-Cutting Bit
It is a bit that is cut narrow slots or grooves of a material’s edge.
V-Groove Bit
It is a non-pivoted bit that creates V-shaped grooves on a material.
Remember that using a wrong bit will break not only your material, but also your hand wood router. It is also important to consider the height of the router bit to acquire the depth that you want.
Don’t Plunge Deeply at Once
You should create a series of shallow cuts before plunging deeper to provide less strain for your router bit and motor.
Get Rid of the Burrs
Take time to allow the router motor to cool down. Also, take this time to get rid of the burrs created by the series of cuts, because the burrs may clog them.
A plunge cut is considered as one of the most difficult types of woodcuts. However, with the proper tools, practice, and technique, one can become an expert to it.
This was a guest post by Anthony. Anthony is a Home Improvement DIYer, who is interested in different projects of Home Improvement. He blogs at Equipment Area, where he shares tips, guides and reviews of different tools around the house.