cope and stick

[Scott Welty]

Hello- Just purchased a new pair of cope and stick bits for some cabinet doors I'm making. It looks to me that A1 is for the inside edge of rails and stiles as it has the 1/4" cutter for the panel. BUT, what's the little cutter above that AND the bearing is above my 3/4" stock. What don't I know?

thanks gang!
-Scott

492582

[Kevin Jenness]

The small cutter trims the back shoulder of the groove and ensures that the shoulders are offset a consistent amount. You will have to mount your work to a template for curved work using the bearing.

Running a sample will start to show you what you need to know but don't yet. You may need to adjust the distance between the cutters using shims to get a good fit. You will want a straight zero clearance fence aligned with a miter gauge groove, a substantial backup block or a sled with an effective clamp for coping. In any case you will want a backer to limit spelching. You can cope first then run sticking or run long sticks and cope using a backup block with a stuck edge. You will want to hold the material to the table effectively for both operations, ideally with a power feed for the sticking. An accurate straightedge, square, caliper and dial indicator are useful for setup.

[Scott Welty]

Ah ha. . .Thanks Kevin - So the bearing is only for curved template and for my straight stock its just up to the fence to guide the work? In testing I already see the work being sucked into the cutter when the tail end is being worked. I guess I need a carrier of some kind for this step.
-Scott

[Kevin Jenness]

Three solutions for sniping:

1. Use a straight fence aligned with the small cutter and remove nothing from the back shoulder.

2. Use an offset fence aligned with the small cutter and remove the entire edge.

3. Use a back fence (stock between fence and cutter) and remove the entire edge. This is best done with a power feed but can be set up with featherboards. The stock must be held firmly against the outboard fence.

For 1 and 2 keep the fence opening minimal.

There is a fair bit of setup required for accurate results and safety is paramount. How much millwork experience do you have? Is there a competent woodworker nearby from whom you can get a hands-on lesson? Maybe someone else here can recommend a good video online. It can be hard to sort out good practice from bad with limited experience.

[Greg Quenneville]

You can use the bearing and a good straightedge to set the fence…that way you are getting the correct depth of cut on both cope and stick operations. I just use a square offcut of mdf in a convenient size to guide and back up my cope cuts on the router table and something more robust (Aigner countermax) on the shaper

[Rich Engelhardt]

Running a sample will start to show you what you need to know but don't yet. <--that right there.
That small second cutter is there to form the bead.
It's difficult to visualize because the pictures of the bits are upside down compared to the profiles they cut. Once you've done a few, you get used to they way that works.
Bead - what you have. No bead.

[Scott Welty]

Thanks all. Got it working. Two feather boards on the outboard side works well. Need a good backer board for the cope and plenty of stock to test with. My morning is set!

-Scott