Need a quick answer to a Rail and stile bit question - UPDATED, trouble determined

[Mark Rios]

I've got a Freud 99-263 Rail and Stile bit matched set. While setting the bits up to use and making practice fittings, I noticed that there is a little bit of play between the cope and the stick. Is this normal? It isn't much play bit it definately isn't a snug fit. If this is normal, how does it glue up properly?

Also, when I put the two bits together, aligning the proifiles, they really don't match very well. Kinda confusing for me but this is my first time using cope and stick bits and my bonehead factor is in play.

I'm ready to start routing these edges and I really can't afford any more down time (the rain has really killed me and the owner is getting very frustrated) but if I need to I guess I could go buy another set if I had to.

Any help or ideas?

Thanks very much for any help and advice.

[Brent Harral]

You should be able to dry fit them with just a little resistance. The glue will swell the wood a hair, but they really should be kinda snug. Of course, do the cope cuts first and then a sample rail so they go together nicely while laying on a flat surface. Also (and I'm sure you know this) think ahead to the thickness of your panel so your grooves are "in the right place" :D - with a 3/4" (backcut) or a 5/8" panel. It just kinda stinks when the panel is a hair proud of the frame and then you have to drum sand/sand the whole panel again after the door is together..hope this makes sense! (you did say any advice..!)

Good luck.

[Mark Rios]

You should be able to dry fit them with just a little resistance. The glue will swell the wood a hair, but they really should be kinda snug. Of course, do the cope cuts first and then a sample rail so they go together nicely while laying on a flat surface. Also (and I'm sure you know this) think ahead to the thickness of your panel so your grooves are "in the right place" :D - with a 3/4" (backcut) or a 5/8" panel. It just kinda stinks when the panel is a hair proud of the frame and then you have to drum sand/sand the whole panel again after the door is together..hope this makes sense! (you did say any advice..!)

Good luck.

Thanks Brent. These are inset panel doors as opposed to raised panel. Sorry for not being more clear.

These pieces, after being cut, are definately not snug. I have just finished a few more test pieces and I realized that, while the fit is a little loose and might be okay (I don't believe so though), at the top and bottoms where the joint is seen, there are fairly large gaps between the joints. The T&G part of the joint in particular is DEFINATELY not snug. The tongue (according to my precision, highly accurate HF dial calipers :rolleyes: ) measures out at about 14.5/64 and the groove measures a hair over 16/64.

Is this a bad set of Rail and Stile bits?

[Mike Goetzke]

Two things:

1) Are you using anything to keep the stock against the table (like a featherboard)?

2) Some sets come with shims, but, it should be properly adjusted at the factory.

(If you have further problems go to www.woodnet.net (http://www.woodnet.net) forums and look-up user CharlesM, he is a Freud rep..)

[Charles McCracken]

Mark,

While it is certainly not impossible for there to be a problem with the bits it is very unusual and I am also a little puzzled by your measurements. You said the groove measures over 16/64" (6.35mm) But the groover with the set is actually 15/64" (6mm) so if the groove is that wide it leads me to believe that there is a lot of runout at the collet or the router shaft is not perpendicular to the table. Either of these will cause grooves and copes to be wide and profiles and tongues to be narrow. Do you have other R&S bits or even a groover that you can try in this setup?

[Charles McCracken]

look-up user CharlesM, he is a Freud rep..)

Mike,

Thanks for the help. Guess I beat you by a hair.

[Mark Rios]

I just measure the T&G parts of the bits. Yes, the groover part of the stick bit is 15/64, just as Charles mentions. However, the space between the two parts on the cope bit (where the bearing is, is 16/64. Not as big a difference as the measurements on my wood pieces but a difference nonetheless. Is this normal?

I am also going to double check the router mounting plate on my router table to make sure that is is flush with the top of the surface of the table.

BTW, this is a Freud 2000 router purchased about 2 1/2 years ago and used for only a few hours. I think the router should be okay as far as runout. A year or so ago I used my Freud 45 degree lock miter bit and made some joints that came out fine. I would have thought that if there was a runout problem then it would have shown up then.?

[Charles McCracken]

Mark,

If the groover measures 15/64" and the space between the cutters on the cope bit measures 16/64" the bits would make a tenon that was too thick to fit the groove (but it is really difficult to accurately measure that space on the cope bit). If you measure the groover and it is less than the groove it produces then I think there is a runout issue or the router is not perpendicular but since you are pressed for time I recommend that you try to get a replacement for the router bit set and see if the problem persists.

[Mark Rios]

Thanks Charles, I'm sure it's me and my equipment but I don't know what to do to fix it. I think I will go buy a Coping sled so that I will have some sort of reliability in the height.

[Frederick Rowe]

Mark- Before you buy a coping sled, you may want to check the bits to see if they use shims between the two cutter wings. I recently had a similar problem with a matched set of Bosch Rail and Stile cutters. In my case the cope cut was too tight. I checked and rechecked the bit height, router plate flatness, fence position, etc . . . Finally, I chucked the bit in the router and using one collet wrench to hold the bit secure, loosened the bolt on the cutter and seperated the cutters. Sure enough there were several thin shims which could be removed or added which changed the thickness of the ogee (where the fit was too tight). I moved several shims until the fit of the cope and stick were perfect. It is (at least for me) difficult to visualize what needed to change because the cutter you are looking at produce the inverse shape. Good luck.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Sometimes you can miss on the height setting for the bit. That will play havoc with the fit.

[Charles McCracken]

Frederick,

There are shims between the cutters on the Freud R&S bits but since the likelihood of the bits being shimmed incorrectly is low and the process of changing the spacing is tedious I was trying to eliminate other factors first.

[Mark Rios]

Okay, I checked and adjusted the flatness of the table and the plate blah, blah, blah. Before I read Charles latest post, I had already moved the shims around and was able to successfully get the T&G parts snug but the beaded part was still pretty sloppy.

I hadn't thought about the router shaft not being perpendicular to the table, so after reading Charles' posts again, I checked and, sure enough, it isn't.

I'm pretty sure now that that's the problem. I'm also sure that the rest of you are saying, "Well of course"! (I mentioned before my bonehead factor. My amateur status is really showing.) Well, now how do I fix it? There are 3 screws holding the router to the plate and they aren't necessarily oriented in any linear way so is it just a little shim here and a thicker/thinner shim there trial and error kinda thing? Or is there a systematic trick or two that I don't know?

[Steve Clardy]

Yes. Just shim the router base on the plate. Heavy paper will work if you have no brass shim stock.

[Mark Rios]

Yes. Just shim the router base on the plate. Heavy paper will work if you have no brass shim stock.


Okay...thanks Steve. But how heavy? Any paper that I have is really, really light; like a fraction of an once. I'm not sure where to get hea.....okay, okay. Just kidding.

Thanks again. I'll get to shimming now and see how it goes.

[Steve Clardy]

Software box side, etc. Or magazine paper.

[Mark Rios]

Well, I got the router base finally shimmed. It isn't perfect but it's really, really close in all directions. One shim needed to be a full 1/16" under one of the screws. Anyway, I used a 1/2" shank, 1/2" diameter flush trim bit to square up with.

Put everything back together and made test cuts. I get some squarer/sharper edges on the profiles but the shapes still just don't fit together. Loose with gaps. Tried swapping shims around again and just couldn't get it to mate up snug. I've spent the whole day on this. Man am I frustrated. I'll have to go a different direction with the doors. I must have some trouble with the bearings and/or an arbor(?) run-out issue.

After this job I think I'll start over with my router and table set-up. I don't really like my fence anymore anyway. Too much trouble to move it and adjust it.

Oh well, back to the doors. Thanks very, very much to all for your help and advice.

[David Rose]

Mark, I really feel your pain. Charles is here, so you should get some help. I'd send that set back and try another, as he suggested. I got a decent Bosch set after one send back. The Freud set took on send back to get a decent cut. Whiteside took 3 or 4 sets with me matching up parts to get a good one. It is the only one that I consider good, though there are still gaps of several thousandths in several places. :( There are a LOT of cuts on those carbide faces! Just a couple of thou here and there and you've got an ugly fit. I don't think that I am any more picky than most folks who desire to produce fine furniture. It would probably cost more than most woodworkers want to spend to get the specs that would make a really nice fit. :rolleyes: That is my take spending many hours with a helpful Whiteside rep and matching up parts.

David

[Charles McCracken]

Mark,

I apologize for your frustration and hope the job ends successfully. Afterward please send the bits and router to me. I will check all for defects and repair or replace as necessary.

[tod evans]

mark, have you considered a shaper? .02 tod

[Mark Rios]

Well, the doors got finished, as some may have read in other posts, but they are nothing like they started out to be.

After all the frustration with the Rail and Stile bits and not being able to get the profiles to match up, I decided to just do a tongue and groove door/rail and stile thing. Now, as you recall, I was making a couple of cope cuts and then making stick cuts and trying to adjust the bit to get the profiles to match and they just wouldn't. So then I switched to the tongue and groove bits and they started out the same way; The rectangular shapes of the tenon and the groove just weren't matching up. After testing quite a few pieces I began to notice that the shapes were a little different throughout the test pieces. It turns out that setting the bit a little higher or lower (the bit was always well chucked. The difference in bit height was always somewhere within 1/4" or so) affected how bad the fit was. If I adjusted the bit down to just a hair below or EXACTLY on the set-up line on the bit (below where the bit starts to curve) then the t & g had the least amount of gap. When left it up about 1/4" then there was alot bigger gaps. Doesn't this mean that the arbor is not running true in the router? Isn't this what is called runout?

The groove cutter was making a groove that was bigger that the cutting edge, indicating (to me) that it was wobbling. I adjusted it the best I could and adjusted the tenon cutter so that it made a bigger tenon and was able to get some decent fittings. Not perfectly tight and square but decent.

As mentioned before, the router hasn't seen a ton of use. In fact it was in storage for 6 or 7 months out of the two + years that I've owned it. The rest of the little use it has seen is just using round over bits on less that 24 window stools and a dozen or so cutting boards.

So, do you think that this is a bearing issue, An arbor runout issue, or still, in fact, a table/mounting plate issue? As a reminder, this is a Freud FT2000 Router mounted in a Woodpecker phenolic plate with a Router Raizer.


Charles M., should I still send you the items you mentioned or is the problem with me and my usage (I'm leaning toward the "me" part)?

Thanks again very much to all for your help.

[Charles McCracken]

Mark,

I definitely think it would be best to send the router and the bits to my attention at the address below. We will happily check all and replace or repair as needed and return them with sample cuts.

Freud America, Inc.
Attn: Charles McCracken
218 Feld Ave.
High Point, NC 27263

[Mark Rios]

Thanks you very much Mr. McCracken. I'll get them boxed up and out to you right away.

Thanks very much again for your interest and help.

[Bill Fields]

Special Thanks goes to Freud and Charles!

Wish more suppliers would pitch in like this.

When future brand choices are to made by me--it will be--and has been --FREUD.

BILL

[Joe Chritz]

I agree with Bill that more manufacturers should pay attention to the people who use there equipment. Not just the major companies but the small shops and hobbiests as well.

I have had excellent luck with the several pieces of Freud tooling I have. A couple saw blades (their 40T combo cuts way better then it should for the price) as well as a couple shaper cutters and router bits.

As Tod mentioned above I have gotten excellent results since buying a shaper. All my rails are cut with a baby power feed and once eliminating the human factor I get much better results, with less work and much safer.

Joe