How to Plane Wood with a Router

The best wood work router is an ideal power tool that makes woodworking much easier, comfortable, perfect and faster. When you are working with thick or wide piece of wood, you may find it rather difficult to plane the wood using a planer and a jointer. But, you can make it a perfect job if you use a wood work router with a jig. The router is the ideal tool to plane wood perfectly. Router makes the task much easier and also by using this tool you can save a lot of time.

There are different types of wood routers. Depending on your specific requirements, you can go for a fixed-base router, plunge router or a multi-purpose router.

Step by Step procedure to Plane Wood with a Wood Router

Step. 1.

Make the Fixture

It is very important to ensure that the wood used for the fixture matches to the wood which you want to surface. The fixture consists of a base and two rails. The base will be 1/2 inch thick and each rail will be 2.5 inch thick pieces of wood glued together so as to make a rail of 1 inch thickness. Fix the rails to the base. Ensure that there is a gap of 1.5 inches on each side of the piece of wood that you want to plane. The rails should be a little taller than the thickness of the work piece. The difference should not be above 1/4 inch. You have to accommodate all types of irregularities in the wood when you are making the rails. Make use of screws as well as glue to fix the rails to the base properly.

Step. 2.

Make the jig

A piece of plywood which is sufficiently wide to accommodate the base of the router can be used as the jig. The jig should have sufficient length so that when the router is positioned to one side of your fixture the jig should still have an overhang beyond the opposite rail. The rule of the thumb is to have a jig that is too long and is not short. Drill a large hole at the center of the plywood. As a result of routing, a lot of dust wood chips will be produced and they are to be cleared completely.

Step. 3.

Drill small holes and mount the screws

You may use a combo-square to mark lines along the edges of the hole. Using the lines to position the router, drill small halls for the four screws around the big hole which you have created already. Make the four small holes in a box pattern. Once the four holes are ready, mount the screws in those holes with their heads slightly raised. Because of these screws the jig will remain static instead of moving from side to side when the router bit cuts to the rails.

Step. 4.

Mount the router

As the next step mount the base of the router to the jig. Take a wide, straight bit and install the same in the router. By way of using a wider bit you can make the process faster.

Step. 5.

Use the jig and fixture

Now you must position your stock firmly into the fixture.  For that you can use hot-melt glue and carpet tape. Instead you can clamp blocks of woods against the edge of your stock. The piece of wood that you want to plane is to be set up in such a way so that it will cut across the natural line patterns that are found on the surface of the wood. By way of setting up the piece of wood in this manner you can prevent tearing out of the wood fiber.

Step. 6.

Set the router and start routing

Now you may set the router. Ensure that router is set at a height that is sufficient to cut deep by not less than 1/8 inch. Once the stock is cleared completely, you can begin routing. Hold the jig outside the rails and see to it that it moves across the wood in a straight pass. When you hold the router rather than the jig, the router will wander the bit as you go. You will get the best results by pushing the router instead of pulling. At each bit depth you have to run the bit all over the surface even if the bit is not touching all the points for the initial depth settings.

Until the surface of the work piece is flat, you have to continue adjusting the bit depth. Further, turn over the wood and repeat the process and ensure that both surfaces are flat. Those who are using the best wood router can follow this method to plane wood. This is one among the best methods to plane wood using wood router. This method suits to wide pieces of wood as well as thick pieces of wood. This method is also used to plane cross-sections of tree-trunk that are very difficult to make flat. This method is ideal for all the popular wood routers.