Official Luthiers Forum!

Many years ago I learned what was probably the most valuable woodworking
lesson I ever received. I learned it from a Zach Etheridge at Highland
Hardware and it was about router feed direction. Just three words changed
my thinking about routers forever.....Routers Go Left. Tonight I was reading
about some members' router travails so I went and looked at Highland
Hardware's site and, low and behold, they have actually written it up! Check
out .http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com/Brock Poling38790.4592824074

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Sylvan
http://www.wellsguitars.com

Sylvan - I couldn't get the link to work - I think this is the link you meant.

http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com/index.asp?PageAction=Cu stom&ID=3Brock Poling38790.4595833333

i got it Sylvan, nice website for learning great tips on woodworking in general, thanks for sharing this!

Serge

Here it is http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com/index.asp?PageAction=Cu stom&ID=68

And the index page for the library
http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com/index.asp?PageAction=Cu stom&ID=3Scott Thompson38789.8644444444

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Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

I guess I don't totally agree with this as a simple rule. It is common
cabinetmaking technique to move the router to its right, as then you are
moving it against the direction of the bit rotation causing the bit to pull
itself into the wood, and there is no danger of runaway movement. When
using a router table, feeding in the equivalent direction of a left
movement is usually warned against as being dangerous. Right
movement also makes it more likely that the pattern is fully shaped. When
you go to the left, the router is tending to pull away from the wood. Yes
there are many times when it is useful to move the router to the left, for
example it is a bad idea when routing end grain to go all the way to the
corner moving right, as you risk a split-out. When routing something
critical, which is pretty much everything in a guitar, I think the best
technique is to move the router in whichever direction is "downhill" to the
grain first, and maybe second, and then finish with the router moving to
the right.

We're guitarbuilders, we do a lot of things cabinetmakers find inasane and bizarre (witness all the cross-grain joints). But you're right; once you're 99% of the way there using the 'safe' cut (in terms of not tearing out, not in terms of the router not running away from you), you should do a full-circle with a normal cut to get things perfectly flush.

I don't quite get it! I read the article and It seems backwards to me. I have
always cut with a router against the spin of the bit. In all of the woodworking
articles I have read this is the first time I have heard of this.

Sylvan, do you rout this way. How long did it take to get used to it? Do you
rout the binding ledge this way?

If you are facing a piece of wood, with an upright router in your hands, and
are going to route the edge of the wood closest to you, then this is the
perspective in which you can orient to the router's right or left. "Normal"
direction is to the right, though with greater risk of tear-out. Climb cutting
is to the left, safer as far as tear-out but tending to wander or "climb" away
from the wood. This "wandering" can actually be fairly violent if using a big
bit on a powerful router, something not done often on a guitar.

Brook, I think you're talking about something quite different to the author of that piece, namely you're thinking about what the bit is doing; he's boiled down the effect of what the bit is doing (regardless of climb or regular cut) on the entire router - it goes left relative to the direction its travelling.

This isn't about the spin of the bit, s'much, although the spin is what makes routers want to go left; this isn't about climb cutting, or normal cutting, either, it's about understanding where the router wants to go: towards the left *within its frame of reference*. As in, to the left side of the direction you're pushing or pulling it in. It tells you where to put a fence, f'r instance.

Sylvan told me this rule in person when I visited him, but it's taken a while to sink in fully. At least, I think it's sunk in fully. Sylvan, did I get that righ?

Mattia Valente38790.4629050926

Not yet. Huh? I route all the time and have probably done it right and wrong. So, left relative to the direction the router is moving? Corn fused. Grin.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Mattia -
You are absolutely correct!!!!! Lesson well learned!

Here is a quick way to deal with what the router wants to do in context of
"Routers go left". Let's suppose you want to cut a slot in a piece of wood.
You need to use a fence. Which side of the router does the fence go on? It
all depends on which way the router will travel. Knowing that the router
ON ITS OWN wants to go left, put the fence on the left side and the router
will actually "hug" the fence with little or no effort from you, insuring a
straight cut. When you get confused, here is the quick trick - using your
right hand, palm down, point with your index finger in the direction the
router will travel when making your cut. The direction your right thumb is
pointing is where to put the fence. This also works for pattern cutting and
bits with ball bearings. You want the router's action to hold the bearing to
the work surface just as if it was a fence.
Remember, in a router table the router is upside down. So, in a router
table router's want to go right NOT left. Again, knowing this greatly
facilitates patten routing since we all know that the fence on a router
table is to the right of the work!

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Sylvan
http://www.wellsguitars.com

Okay, I'm trying, then you gave me a new rule: The router always goes left, unless it's upside down, then it goes right, relative to me, but left relative to the router, right?

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Great tip Sylvan! Another little tip/trick in my (expanding) arsenal of wood-working experience. Thanks a lot.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

I think I've gottit guys. Thanks to all for this info. I'm just getting into routing so this will DEFINATELY help! Routers Go Left !!

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Well, I wondered how such strange advice could be given by Highland
Hardware, and thought that I must be missing something - and I was,
though it will take me some studying to "get it". The woodworking universe
knows that routers "normally" are moved to the right, and after decades of
looking at it that way, I literally could not follow what was being said in the
article. I am not adverse to re-structuring my old mental processes, but it
doesn't come easy.