T&G with a hand held router?

[Joe O'Connor]

I have to cut a tounge and groove joint on some long and wide boards for a new project, I don't have sufficient support or hold down capabilities on my router table. I want to get a t&g set with bearings and run them in a hand held router but I've never done this and am not sure if it's a good idea or not.

[glenn bradley]

I prefer to create long T&G joinery with the hand held router as the small base follows the surface more accurately than trying to force long or heavy material through a fixed path past a router table mounted bit. I do this with a straight bit however and not with a set. The captured tongue when using a double cutter as used in matched sets would concern me when using a hand held router. I base this on lack of experience as I have never done it. It just seems like a hazard possibility if you erroneously tilted the motor during the operation.

[Adam Levitt]

I did my whole shop floor, 16 mm birch ply, handheld with a t & g set.
I did some test pieces first to get the setting right,
Worked great

[Jerry Miner]

Definitely do-able hand-held. I strongly advise an offset (teardrop) sub-base for stability.

[Randy Rose]

I would prefer to cut the tongues on the t/s. Rabbit style or with a dado depending on board width.

.02