I need a little help with my raised panel bit set.

[Brad Cambell]

I have ordered the Freud 3 piece (97-260) raised panel bit set. I will be receiving it on Tuesday but I am "under the gun" so to speak. I am helping my daughter on her 4-H project which is July 15th. I am done except the doors. Since I am cutting it so close, I would like to glue up any panels in advance but I do not know how much wider to cut each panel. I have looked online everywhere that I can think of but no dice.

Does anyone have a link to the manual for the raised panel cutter so I can have everything figured out and have the panels to rough length.

Thanks

[joseph dake]

Typical doors are 2 1/4 wide stile and rails so if you take off 4 1/4 of an inch off the width and height and you should be good buy normal standards.

[C Scott McDonald]

First you picked an excellent set. I have one and have been completely happy with it.

Second there are some very specific measurements to use that come in the little manual and CD that come with it. I will see if i can find it.

Scott

[Keith Hankins]

Easy answer is take a piece of scrap and cut an edge and measure it. Not being a smart ass, but thats the way I always do it with a new bit set. Their website should have the dimensions of the cutter set. Just add enough to account for the gap in the stiles. I don't put gaps in the rails since that board won't move north and south but will move east and west on ya. Not had much experience with Freud, but they are reputable. I find making test pieces out of scrap saves me good stuff. By the way, I'd save those setup pieces makes setting up your router table easier. Drill a small hold in them and hang em on a nail in the shop. A couple last things. I make my panels a tad long and make the panel and trim that last bit off, and make one final pass to get a perfect panel. Last, remember to do your cross grain first, and long grain last. Only thing I see might give you an issue is you don't have a lot of time to let those panels sit and take them down to final dimensions over time. I generally allow two weeks for panels I make to see if they are going to go squirly on me. I learned that the hard way once. Made a panel quick made the door, and she twisted bad. Learned my lesson so to speak. Good luck!

[Brad Cambell]

Easy answer is take a piece of scrap and cut an edge and measure it. Not being a smart ass, but thats the way I always do it with a new bit set.

Thanks Keith. No, I don't think your a "smart ass" but since I don't actually have the router bits yet, it would be very hard to cut a piece of scrap with an imaginary router bit.

I was just trying to get a head start and glue up some panels before my router bits arrived. According to FedEx, I should be getting them tomorrow.

Thanks for your advice though and I will cut a few test pieces before the real thing.

[francis gunde]

This may help. http://www.freudtools.com/images/manuals/PARS_poster.pdf

[Larry Fox]

If I am understanding you correctly you want to know how wide to cut the panels for the doors. If this is correct and you know the width of your rails / stiles you should be able to get VERY close with no additional information. Typical tongue (if that is the right word to use here) length for rail / stile cutters is between somewhere in the 7/16" range and I have never seen one longer than 5/8". Go conservative and assume the set you ordered is 5/8.

Panel width = (Door Width) - (2*rail width) + (2 * 5/8") - 1/4"

Same formula for the height.

Someone check my math here. The 1/4" is to allow for insertion of space balls or something similar to keep it centered.

So if you have a door which will be 12" wide with 2" rails, by this formula you should glue up your panels to (12) - 4 + 1.25 - .25 = 9"

If you do this the worst you will have to do is change the 5/8" dimension to whatever the cutters specify and trim the panels on the tablesaw. If it is a 4-H project I don't imagine there are that many doors so you are looking at probably 5 minutes of work (tops). This allows you to get the panels prepped and waiting for when the bits arrive. Make a couple of extras for setup / testing.

[Keith Hankins]

Sorry misunderstood your original question.