How to avoid Tear out when beveling end grain of an oval cherry table top

[Lee Schierer]

It’s and oval table, 42” by 74”

When using a router to add a decorative touch to the curved edge of a piece of wood, tear out can occur in certain areas. In those areas, you can often avoid tear out by climb cutting with your router. This is one case where climb cutting instead of conventional cutting is advised.
This photo shows how to address curves on a router table.climb cutting.jpg

Here is what can happen when routing curves with conventional cutting. climb cutting router.jpg
See the explanations here and here.

[Charles Guest]

Climb-cut it with your router, or hand plane it. Practice climb-cutting first. The router wants to feed itself into the cut and you have to control it.

Never climb-cut on a router table.

[Todd Zucker]

I have only done one round table with a router but used the technique Lee described and it worked very well, using light passes and climb cutting depending on the quadrant.

[Tom Bender]

Hi Daniel
It's a bit more work but you should be able to get to the same result with a good rasp and sanding block. Make a line to approach. Practice first.

Sign up as a contributor. The ability to share pictures is really worth it.

[Daniel Bejarano]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. It's interesting that I found the solution in the mistake itself if that makes sense. I literally kept running my finger and really feeling the grain direction and then routing in that direction. I routed in the opposite direction where I felt the friction of rubbing my finger against the wood. The previous tear out really revealed the grain direction, and it was always different on the end grain. It wasn't a matter of just climb cutting because I ended up going in different directions at both ends of the table. iCloud Photos (2).zip