Bryan Rocker
02-24-2007, 1:24 AM
Good afternoon folks,
Having a kitchen full of doors to make I finally started working on making the fixture to make a repeatable mortise. My first issue was I didn't have a plunge router. I stopped by and picked up a Ridgid 12 amp plunge/fixed base combo. I wanted the 3 1/4 HP but its no longer offered. Any how I built a fixture just wide enough for my router base and I did my first mortise. It went ok, 4 passes and I hit 1" deep, my target depth. I pulled it out of the fixture and it was a nice crisp mortise with one problem. The whole was offset by "0.030. After digging around I decided to put my vernier on the router base. Found the router base way off center. I center it up as best I could and tried to do another mortise. I made 2 passes and I broke my 1/4" slot bit. Here is my question. Do I need to drill a 1/4" pilot hole first?? Or did I just happen to have a bad bit. I will say they are cheap bits, although it is the first one I have broken to date. The groove was deep enought to see that it was within 0.005" of being centered this time......
For you router mortisers out there, did you build your own fixture or did you buy one?
On a side note I finally installed my WWII blade tonight that I bought at the Columbus WW show. That blade sure cuts smooth. I am very impressed with it.
Bryan
Having a kitchen full of doors to make I finally started working on making the fixture to make a repeatable mortise. My first issue was I didn't have a plunge router. I stopped by and picked up a Ridgid 12 amp plunge/fixed base combo. I wanted the 3 1/4 HP but its no longer offered. Any how I built a fixture just wide enough for my router base and I did my first mortise. It went ok, 4 passes and I hit 1" deep, my target depth. I pulled it out of the fixture and it was a nice crisp mortise with one problem. The whole was offset by "0.030. After digging around I decided to put my vernier on the router base. Found the router base way off center. I center it up as best I could and tried to do another mortise. I made 2 passes and I broke my 1/4" slot bit. Here is my question. Do I need to drill a 1/4" pilot hole first?? Or did I just happen to have a bad bit. I will say they are cheap bits, although it is the first one I have broken to date. The groove was deep enought to see that it was within 0.005" of being centered this time......
For you router mortisers out there, did you build your own fixture or did you buy one?
On a side note I finally installed my WWII blade tonight that I bought at the Columbus WW show. That blade sure cuts smooth. I am very impressed with it.
Bryan