That rail to be dead on exactly 11 and a quarter inches in length. And the first thing we are going to do is use our rail bit to cut the profile into the ends of our rail pieces, so let us check that in to the router and get rolling. Now, to set the height of the bit is one thing that I like to make sure we do, and that is keep a 16th inch lip here, at the bottom of this piece. Okay, if you have that at the 16th of inch, everything else sort of just falls in line in the right place.
So, got my test piece here that I cut earlier, and that is going to make it very easy for me to set this up. So, once you do this save; some of your scraps because they are going to come in real handy in the future for future set up but if you do not have the set up block, you basically just make a cut, do a test cut and keep making slight adjustment until you get to the final number that you want and again, I am aiming for approximately 16th of an inch, it is not absolutely critical, do not even get your measuring tape out, just keep it close.
Now, before we actually start the routing of the rail ends, we need to do a few more things to make sure we set up properly. Now our bit here, you notice is a really nice bearing on it, very thick bearing here at the center and that is to make sure that we do not go too far when we start running our piece through but, that is not enough support as you run this piece across this way, it is a very dangerous thing so, we need as much support as possible. And what I do is bring my fence up and I usually loosen this three, and in every fence is going to be a little bit different but, you want to close it in as close as you can to the bit itself to minimize the amount of the gap that is going to exist on those sides.
Okay, so I use the bearing as a guide and I put my ruler up against it, bring the fence forward, get it pretty close and I lock one side down. Now, I could pivot. Okay, so I rest my ruler all the way across and I bring it in just to the point that it contacts, then I tighten the other side down. Now, I can be, you know, pretty confident that my bearing is in perfect alignment with both sides of my fence.
Now cutting in, such a heavy duty profile on the ends of this piece and running that through the router is an extremely dangerous ordeal, not to mention you could wind up with a lot of tear out at the back end. So what I normally, do to combat that is make sure that I have nice square piece of plywood and that is actually going to be my support piece, okay. And, you brush up, you put the rail piece up against that. Now, when I push this through, I got the advantage of all this extra support, so I will even tape this to my push block once in a while, just to make sure it is not going to move, and as you go through, you got a lot more support. Your hands are away from the cutting edge and this guy is not going to go flying off into the air.
Now, one thing that--you know this is something that it works well and that is how I have done it up to this point, but I recently, had a chance to get a hold of this properly. Now, this is nothing you could not build at home. In fact, I would like to show you all these parts so that you could see how it was made and you know, couple of hours in a weekend, you could certainly make this yourself. It is a piece of fenolico, same material they make zero clearance, inserts out off, is the base here and of course, we got a nice handle. One of this toggle clamps and the sacrificial backing board. Okay, this is available at Rockler and, you know, honestly, as simple as it is, you could build it yourself, but for the price, I do not remember what it was. But for the price, it just seems like, you know, sometimes it is easier to just buy this things pre-made.
Okay, this, your work piece such right in here like so, and I like to use another block to make sure I have it right to the end of the sled. Okay, once that is in place, I bring down the clamp, that locks in place. And in this actually, slides forward and back to give you even that much more support and then you turn the handle, unlock it down.
Now, we are talking the ultimate and safety and support as the sled rides along the fence and push it through, when I have got two hands, controlling this all the way through the cut. So, this is what I am going to use for my operation today.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services