large diameter slot cutting router bit

[jim mills]

Anyone know of a slot cutting router bit capable of cutting a 1" deep slot? TIA

[Lee Schierer]

What width slot are you looking to make? You can use machinist's end mills for extra reach in cutting slots.

[Mark Bolton]

Anyone know of a slot cutting router bit capable of cutting a 1" deep slot? TIA

1" is pushing it for a router bit. Assuming you cant run it on table saw or shaper? Ive never seen one that deep.

[Mel Fulks]

Slot that deep is gonna close up and be too small .

[Rich Engelhardt]

How long & how wide do you need?

You might be able to rig up something using one of the small trim saws.

I have the 12 V Makita - it's a 3 3/8" diameter blade. It cuts a 1" max deep cut.

Others. like the DeWalt & Milwaukee are a little larger I think. There are a few corded ones also.

[jim mills]

Slot is for a guide on the bottom of a set of large sliding barn doors. The doors are just too big to do in the shaper. I was hoping to find something like 1/8" kerf x 1" deep. I could do two passes and get 1/4" wide groove. Sure, that's a large bit, but I've run a 3" diameter panel raiser in a hand held router before, being careful, without incident.

[Warren Lake]

then just run a router wiht a good quality spiral bit like an Onsrud CRO-285. Its solid carbide and has 1" of cutting though in plunging that doesnt matter your extension what you can get will be the judge of how deep and it will do 1" deep without checking likely more like 1 1/2" or more.

what Mel said had to do doors for a carpenter once. They often have their carpenter ways. Had to do 1/4" x 3/4" deep dadoes in hard maple when it should have been mortise and tennon with a haunch. A good number of the styles closed up just as Mel has said from tension release. Will depend on wood thickness as well and type of wood but inferior way to make doors.

[Mark Bolton]

Super sketchy solution. Cut off mandrel for die grinder and pick up a couple small diameter (4") saw blades at the home center. Lowest RPM on your router out board fence.

[Bill Dufour]

They used to make biscuit cutter bits for routers. They made cabinet door hinges that had a halfmoon backplate that went into a slot cut into the door. Similar to a buscuit slot. Might even be a biscuit slot but it cut a small screw clearance groove as it cut the slot. Popular around 1970.
You could screw some short 4x4"s to a skilsaw baseplate and make a track slotting saw.
Bill D

[Bill Dufour]

Dremel makes some little wood cutting saws that fit on their arbors. A chainsaw might be good if you can control it with some brackets.
Bill D

[Warren Lake]

What I said will work fine.

[jim mills]

What I said will work fine.


Ya, a viable solution, but will likely require me to work while standing on a ladder.

[Richard Coers]

Ya, a viable solution, but will likely require me to work while standing on a ladder.
You clamp the door on the face of your bench at an angle. You use a base on the router that has a fence that can be tightened up on both sides of the door.

[Warren Lake]

so what if so. You want to get the job done?

[jim mills]

so what if so. You want to get the job done?


Yup! I'm on it.

[Mark Bolton]

Yup! I'm on it.

I run these on the CNC occasionally. Will get you 1.125" @ about 3/32. Not sure I'd want to hold onto it in a router on a ladder overhead but I'd surely give it a whirl in a big router on a bench as long as the cord was was wrapped around my leg or the router had a trigger. :p470070

Amana 48200

[William Hodge]

I had to run a 3/4" wide by 1" deep groove in both edges of (24) 1 3/4" x 14" x 16' boards. At the time, I had a shoulder injury. I couldn't move the wood to get it on a shaper.

I used a Freud slot cutter set up like a dado blade to rough out the grooves. I would finish with a 3/4" diameter router bit, in two depth passes. I used a big Porter Cable router for the straight bit, and a Makita D handle router for the slotting dado.

Roughing out the groove worked, because it lessened the cutting face. Running a 3/4" x 1" cut into essentially end grain killed a Milwaukee router in 10'. I don't normally kill routers. The slotting cutters set up as a dado blade have a different cutting action, and work better. I just couldn't find any that went 1" deep. The second router bit was key.

[Andrew Hughes]

Ya, a viable solution, but will likely require me to work while standing on a ladder.
That makes it more exciting esp if the ladder is long and wobbly. Good times

[Warren Lake]

I can ask to borrow my neighbours wooden ladder. its very old and like a swing only with steps. I caught her cleaning her eves troughs on the garage. Told her if she did that again id kill her :) she is over 90 and still cuts her lawn and takes care of the whole property. Her lot is 300 feet wide. Its like a park.

[Warren Lake]

cant see my last post to ad this but looked and found these were the router bits. I must have changed up from the 285 at some point forgot that. Have tons of both of them more of the 285 which I think was made for them.

470094

[Kris Cook]

That makes it more exciting esp if the ladder is long and wobbly. Good times'

That's funny right there.

[Mark Kanof]

I did a slot like this on a few pocket doors with my track saw. Sat the door on my workbench with the end sticking off the end just a little bit. I made a “jig” out of two pieces of plywood about eight inches wide and as long as the doors. Those were screwed together to make a 90 degree corner. Clamp that to the face of the door with one surface aligned with the end of the door. Now the bottom end of your door is essentially nine or ten inches wide. Clamp your track to that jig so that the blade will run down the middle of the door end. Take two to three passes making slight adjustments each time and you will end up with a 1/4” slot that is 1” deep.

[Mark Bolton]

cant see my last post to ad this but looked and found these were the router bits. I must have changed up from the 285 at some point forgot that. Have tons of both of them more of the 285 which I think was made for them.

470094

How do either of those tools get the OP to a 1" deep by 1/8" wide slot in a door? Do you have some sort of tool morphing option on your router than converts those two tools to 1/8" diameter?

[Warren Lake]

Post six 1/4 slot. You are persistant

[stevo wis]

My friend needed to make a semi circular slot in a wooden bearing for a farm combine. Machinists use a tool that works like a slot cutter and they come in all diameters. He borrowed one and made about a 1 1/2 diameter slot with a Bridgeport milling machine (similar to a drill press). It worked great.
Stevo

[stevo wis]

Sorry it was called a key way cutter.

[Mark Bolton]

Sorry it was called a key way cutter.

Interesting.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I did a slot like this on a few pocket doors with my track saw. Sat the door on my workbench with the end sticking off the end just a little bit. I made a “jig” out of two pieces of plywood about eight inches wide and as long as the doors. Those were screwed together to make a 90 degree corner. Clamp that to the face of the door with one surface aligned with the end of the door. Now the bottom end of your door is essentially nine or ten inches wide. Clamp your track to that jig so that the blade will run down the middle of the door end. Take two to three passes making slight adjustments each time and you will end up with a 1/4” slot that is 1” deep.
That's more or less how I did the sliding barn door I put in to separate the family room from the living room so we could stick one dog in the family room and the other in the living room when we aren't around to watch them. They(two males) try to kill each other every once in a while.
Instead of my track saw though, I made a guide for my 12V Makita trim saw.

[Mark Wooden]

It can be done with a router with a fence as suggested or even a skillsaw with a fence. Mark Kanof's jig would offer the most support for the tool

[Jim Becker]

If you have not already actually built the doors...laminate the bottom rail from three pieces of stock and create the slot without having to actually cut it. This is a handy way when building doors, etc., to avoid dealing with cutting deep mortises and sometimes laminations can be stronger, too, if they are done well.

[Dan Cameron]

Anyone know of a slot cutting router bit capable of cutting a 1" deep slot? TIA

You could perhaps jury-rig something with the sliding part of a bisquit jointer.

[Joe Calhoon]

If you have a shaper and power feed I would just make a support bar and run the door on that. I have a built in support on my shaper but have been in door shops that just use a long sawhorse six or eight feet long same height as the shaper table. I have run 6’ X 10’ doors this way. Taller than 10’ I usually pre slot the stile ends and bottoms before assembly.
470198

[Kevin Jenness]

Taller than 10’ I usually pre slot the stile ends and bottoms before assembly.

That's the easiest way. Standing on a ladder is the hardest. For an assembled door I would try the slotting bit Mark suggested with the door lying flat. Deep slots with a router on edge are sketchy, a bit less so with packing pieces clamped to each face for a wider bearing surface.

[Ronald Blue]

I'm guessing aesthetics is the reason you are using this method to secure the door bottom over some of the easier methods? There is a roller style that runs in a channel also that is hidden but might be to large for the thickness of your doors.