tauras

Ok, so I bought a rail and stile bit set and the results of my first attempts were pretty bad.

What's a good wood to practice on? A wood that minimizes wear and tear on my bits.

tauras

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bobj3

HI tauras

I would suggest some Poplar

It's one of the cheaper woods and will hold the edge.

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harrysin

Here in Australia I use cheap pine and still have quite a few rails and stiles that didn't turn out quite right, but no great cost was involved. I just keep them to remind me not to make the same mistakes next time!

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Harry

stef1611

I find the best wood to practice on is what you can find in the streets on the eve of garbage day.... this way you can try different settings, feeding speed, grain direction and whatnot. But since every type of wood will produce fairly different results, if you always practice on say pine and then want to use your bits on blackbutt you may have some few suprises.
Since I am only new at this and get really cranky if I ruin a nice and expensive piece of wood, here's what I did to teach myself how to use those bits: I used the woods that are the most well known for being prone to chipping easily when routed and exercised on that. When I was able to rout descent groves and so on on this type of wood without chipping then I could consider myself able to rout those more expensive pieces of wood without having the shakes as soon as I switch on the router. I found Tassie Oak and Oregon are example of wood (along with crapy pine and pallet woods) that chip easily so good for practice. Mind you, I still stuff up more often than I should !!!!... and each time I do it's because I am too much in a hurry to see the result and make too deep passes.
Cheers
S.

Hamlin

Hi,

If you're worried about price, the best wood would be.... "dumpster diving" at an area building site.
Pending on where you're located and if you're going to purchase said wood, Poplar is really the best choice. While I'm not going to disagree with Harry about Pine, because it's another nice type to work with. Pine, however, is "sappy", this tends to gull up bits, it's the major draw back to Pine.

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johncs

Is oven cleaner as effective at cleaning them as I've heard?

harrysin

"Is oven cleaner as effective at cleaning them as I've heard?"

I've never tried or even heard of that one, I use whatever solvent is handy at the time, petrol, turps.,thinners etc.

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Harry

curiousgeorge

Oven cleaner will work. You just have to be very careful handling it. It is very caustic. You know... rubber gloves, don't inhale it, all that kind of stuff.

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johncs

Patrick Spielman recommend it. There's another recommendation here:
http://woodworking.about.com/od/blad...ovingPitch.htm

An alternative POV here:
http://www.toolcrib.com/blog/2008/07...d-router-bits/

I was surprised at tje suggestion, not very surprised that it might work: one of the books[1] I read as a teenager described how to dissolve meat in caustic soda solution.


It was a chemistry book, not a Robin Cook novel.

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John

harrysin

I'm surprised that an established routing expert who has published several books on routing, like Patrik Spielman would suggest such dangerous chemicals around our workshops.

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Harry