Hey all, I'm template routing the curved stiles of a Morris chair back (I think you'd call them stiles...the sides that the back slats are mortised into). Its basically a VERY shallow "S" shape, maybe 2" of spread between the two ends (of a center line). I've messed up two individual pieces in the same way and I'm curious what I'm doing wrong.
I'm doing blue tape / super glue to attach the template to a piece of ~1 1/8" cherry. I then band saw as close as I'm comfortable, probably a ~strong 1/8"? I then flip it over, template down, and rout it using a ~2", 1/2" shank bottom bearing router bit. As I come through that bend in the middle, I think I'm approaching the grain in an odd way and on two separate pieces the router bit tore out BIG chunks (beyond the template). Like, would probably need 1/4"+ roundover to get them out. I'm not climb cutting (though I think this would probably solve the problem if you don't kill yourself) because the material is so thick that it really feels like it could run away from you.
Am I doing something obviously wrong? Bad luck? Is there a better way to approach this? I'm sure cutting closer to the template would be helpful, but I'm not super comfortable getting much closer. Any advice?