Shopsmith Forums

At the moment, I do my trim routing with a hand held router. My router table is not flat any more. I think when it was in storage it may have had weight on it. My father passed along a speed increaser for the SS, but I haven't gotten around to using it. So I haven't done any routing with the increaser. I have used the SS in drill press mode to do some rabbet cuts and some dadoes. They came out decent.

I was wanting to get some input from others on routing in drill press mode. How about it?

Tony,
I hope you aren't using the router bits in the drill chuck. It isn't made to take the side pressure of routing.

Tony
I'm probably the only advocate of routing on the SS (if past flak is any indication) but at one time I did quite a bit of routing with my Shopsmith.

I still use it for Cherry which will burn in a heart beat if the bit is spinning too fast.

The biggest thing I learned during it was to not to try too deep or feed too fast. I try to make multible cuts with my last being 1/64 or less. Some times I climb cut my last cut. Climb cutting is feeding the wood the opposite direction. When you do this you must only take a very slight cut.

I have found routing Cherry that if I di the above procedures I end up with a most excellent cut/finish one that rarely if ever needs further sanding.
Ed

I am using the router bit chuck. The one with 3 setscrews.

Ed, when you routed in this mode, what type of profile bits were you using? The cuts I have been making were on poplar. Actually, I have cut some hard maple; mortised out the back for a vise jaw cheek. Still wasn't too bad. Used a steel bit, none the less. Took small passes.

eldyfig wrote:At the moment, I do my trim routing with a hand held router. My router table is not flat any more. I think when it was in storage it may have had weight on it. My father passed along a speed increaser for the SS, but I haven't gotten around to using it. So I haven't done any routing with the increaser. I have used the SS in drill press mode to do some rabbet cuts and some dadoes. They came out decent.

I was wanting to get some input from others on routing in drill press mode. How about it?

The ShopSmith Mark V is made for routing in the "drillpress" mode. As curiousgeorge points out, make sure to use the SS router chuck that you have (hopefully with a guard on it). SS also has a new guard that flips up making bit changes easier.

My new drill press guard arrived today. It is well designed. I can't wait for an opportunity to use it. Jim

[quote="eldyfig"]I am using the router bit chuck. The one with 3 setscrews.

Ed, when you routed in this mode, what type of profile bits were you using? The cuts I have been making were on poplar. Actually, I have cut some hard maple]

Tony
I used most profiles, and many of bits were High Speed Steel although I mostly use carbide now. I have cut many woods using the SS but since I have a number of routers I usually go to them now. However like I said I still prefer the SS for Cherry.

Everyone talks speed but speed equates to number of cuts per inch. If the RPM is lower the feed rate must become lower. I totally agree if you try to force wood past a router cutter on a SS you will have problems. But if you let the cutter do it's work and feed the wood at the speed that matches the RPM it works just fine.
Ed

Tony - Ed isn't the only advocate of routing in drill press position. I've done some rabets, grooves, dado's, (straight bits) and ogees with the Mark V. Only I don't have the speed increaser. Since I know it will work at 5200 RPM, it should go pretty smooth at 10K RPM!

However most of the shaping I have done has been just that - shaping, using the shaping 3 cutter bits. They work very well for edge shaping and door/panel making.

fjimp wrote:My new drill press guard arrived today. It is well designed. I can't wait for an opportunity to use it. Jim

Hi Jim,
Where was it manufactured?

Good morning all ...Last nite i finished routing a 1/4 corner edge on the top and base for a gumball machine that is listed in the general woodworking section 9/28/08 by tom k/mo ....part of why i wanted a SS was to use it as a router....