The face of the Carbide must approach the wood, so hand held, the router moves from left to right or anti-clockwise on an outside surface, however, on an inside surface the opposite is true.
So if you think about it, on a table, the wood is fed from right to left. To grasp this concept, hold a cutter in your hand and rotate it clockwise with cutter facing down and you will understand the above.

 

How the heck can you remember all this when you try to concentrate on your cut?

Don't. Before you start just arrange things so that the carbide is moving into the wood.

 

Harry will appreciate this one...

"Right Hand Rule". No, not the one for E-field and Magnetic field and current flow...

Hold out your right hand (I'm assuming you have a right hand). Shape it like a gun, curl back the middle, ring and pinky to the palm, index finger out, thumb perpendicular (index finger = barrel, thumb = hammer)

Now turn it palm down, you should be looking at the back of your hand. The back of your hand represents the router, your palm is the base plate, that is to say it is the part that would be touching the wood. With your palm down, this is a hand-held router. If you do it palm up it would be a table mounted router.

Your thumb points at the work piece edge and your index finger points in the feed direction.

Always works.

If you don't have a right-hand to do this with, I guess you will need to learn a different trick.

 

Hi RW Young-Thanks for posting that very useful rule. If working on the router table does it become the "left hand rule?' Also, if routing a groove or dado, does it make any difference which direction one moves the router, seems to me there's no difference in how the cutter attacks the wood. Thanks for your help.
rstermer

 

Good answers, helps to understand better

Rob, I kind of mixed-up my fingers for a moment LOL but it's a good way to remember.

Thank you

 

Rob, I was going to take a shot of the right hand rule, because I couldn't find the one that senior moderator Mike posted a while back, however I couldn't hold the camera in my left hand. For beginners it is very good.

 

Excellent mnemonic! Thanks!

 

I like that right hand rule, I have wondered my self some time that makes it easy!!! or is that easier.

 

Rob,
I'm a visual kind of person, and that "Right Hand Rule" is great. I know for at least the near future, you'll see me out in my shop with my hand out, pointing to my workpiece just before I cut.
Thanks again

 

Hey guys I'm all thumbs so the right hand rule left me pointing and firing, rather than routing. Here's the way I think about it: the cutter is like a bunch of sharp fingers trying to trap the workpiece and push it in towards the fence on a table router and because the cutter rotates CCW so you want the workpiece being pushed into the fence, not out or away from it.So feed from to right to left.

< CCW cutter rotation
-------------- # ------------------------ fence
>
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm <-----==== work

With a hand held the cutter is rotating CW, pulling itself into the work piece. Use this diagram: (dots are invisible) this software doesn't recognize empty space so....dots, m= wood to be routed or a pattern, table top etc. Also it puts everything flush left..snap!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
m...............................m
m...............................m hand held
m.....router=====-->.....m
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
> CW cutter rotation
#
<
<------=====Router
On a table the work goes from right to left, with a hand held, the router goes from right to left except on an inside rout.

Sorry, that's the best I can do...not a computer geek...yet! Bill

 

Great thread guys and very helpful to me at least

 

Very simple to remember .. . ROUTERS ALWAYS WANT TO GO LEFT !!

If you push a running router into a piece of material, it will pull to the left .. simply take advantage of this fact.

 

This would seem to indicate that there is no difference routing the outside of a circle and routing the inside of a circle. Perhaps a little more explanation is required for this old man.

 

Harry -

Should we now explain the right hand rule as applies to electro-magnetics?

(Or as we used to call it in school, "electro-magics"...)

 

The right hand rule applies to generators and the left to motors to predict the direction of rotation when the direction of current flow and magnetic field are known, and my memory tells me it was Mr. Fleming who came up with it, I seem to remember that there is another method known as the grip rule but it's all too long ago.

 

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/magfor.html

is a good on-line reference.

Harry, I think you may have spent too much time watching the water spiral out the wrong direction down there...

RHR for current in a wire, point thumb in direction of conventional current flow (yes, DC, if it is AC, then you will need to be flipping your wrist, lets not go there). As your fingers curl around the conductor, that is the direction the magnetic fields are generated.

Likewise, if you want to find the force direction for a charge moving perpendicularly though a magnetic field, then shape your right hand like a gun but also point your middle finger perpendicular to your palm (I'll let you work out which side of the palm for yourself...). Now if you orient your index finger in the direction the particle is moving and your thumb parallel to the magnetic field, your middle finger will be pointing in the direction of the effective force. Don't really use that one much.

Another one I use once in a while is for figuring the force direction associated with rotation. Again, right hand, point your fingers in the direction of rotation as if you were going to wrap your hand around the rotating object (say for instance a car tire). Now your thumb will point in the direction of the tangential force. Classic Freshman physics demonstration is having somebody sit on a piano stool and hold a bicycle wheel on a short axis. Give the wheel a spin and if they hold it out in front, it will start to make them rotate ("precession" is the right word?) on the stool.

Seriously, it's all just a mater of finding the mnemnonic that works for you. There are LHR versions of most of the RHR tricks. In my case I tried to learn only the RHR versions otherwise I would have been too confused trying to keep track of which hand was for which! I have enough other things to keep straight without waving my hands about like a spastic spider monkey!

Having a nice summer down there?

 

It's strange, you know, I looked at the first post and had to think how to do it, I've been doing it for more than 20 years and it is all automatic, frankly, I could not have answered the post straight away,
I can assure you I am not new to routing in any manner at all.
I shall have to read up on what you have all said and try to remember.
Derek

 

Here is the artwork Harry mentioned. It is handy to print out and keep by your table.

 

Hey Guys, and especially beginners,
Give this a try, (I just safely did this myself, but do so at your own risk!)
Securely! clamp a 1"x3" wide board about 24" long to the edge of your bench parallel to the edge and 3" face side up. Get out your router with a bottom bearing and a roundover bit say 1/2" radius. With the router between you and the closest edge of the board,(near side) rout a 6" long pass from the right end of the board moving from right to left. Then from from the left end of the board rout a 6" pass from left to right. Notice the difference...it may be slight. In a straight, parallel grain board in my case, with an 18.5lb. PC 518 router there was very little difference. But that's a "monster router"!
Now put the router on the (far side) of the board, to simulate an "inside cut" and try routing the edge from left to right and then right to left. It's good to know what to expect in either case, because a condition will come up when you may need to do one or all 4 methods.

 

"Bump-Cutting" VIDEO



Bill, (woodnthings) and I were discussing this off-line and he brought up the subject of "Bump-Cutting", he was looking for a video he saw somewhere on the subject. Well I found the video and I find it interesting! It seems to be done by someone that's an "Old Hat" to woodworking, like many of you guys in here, so I thought I would do two things here;
Let you guys know about it and attempt that new-fangled embed a video thingie.

Enjoy and learn!
Cordially,
Gerry

 

Hi Guys:

One technique I haven't seen listed above (maybe I missed it) is to use a permanent marker and put the correct direction on the router base. For freehand routing, when looking down on the router, the router should be going "clockwise" with respect to the side of the bit that is in contact with the workpiece.

For example, if one is routing a workpiece that is on the other side of the router from oneself, the router moves "clockwise", which would be left--to-right. If one is routing a workpiece that closer to oneself than the router bit, then "clockwise" would be right-to-left.

For table routing, the workpiece moves "clockwise" around the bit. If the workpiece is on the closer side of the bit, it moves right-to-left, which would be "clockwise" relative to the bit. If the workpiece is on the far side of the bit, then "clockwise" would be left-to-right.

HTH,
Cassandra

 

The easy way to remember the left from the right rule is to think of the British MG sports car, M is on the left (motors) G is on the right (generators).

When routing on the table, do NOT attempt to move the wood from left to right, it is likely to be thrown across the shop at high speed and push your fingers into the cutter, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED..................

 

And if you are widening a groove with a table mounted router, so the bit is not rotating within a fence, be sure the side of the groove you are widening is on the left or front. My left forefinger is still stiff about 16 months after one thoughtless instant the led to the local ER when the cut was on the right.

 

A very important point Tom that can't be over stressed.

 

HI Guys

I know I'm going to catch hell for this but the CLIMB cut works very well when you are milling/routing veneer plywood,,and some other woods, it packs the chips in the slot to keep the veneer from ripping BUT you should not go more than a 1/4" deep on each pass...to be use by the advance user only...

A climb cut is just backwards from the way you should push the stock by the bit on the router table and it works very well with a plunge router also... but you must hold on to the stock at all times on the router table

=======

 

Far from giving you hell Bj, I agree with you but it's only for the more advanced routologist and not for small pieces which can't be gripped securely. When routing around a corner from straight grain to cross grain, going backwards will prevent breakout, but I must stress again that the piece must be gripped firmly.
To get back on my soap box, plunge routing especially using female templates does not present these safety problems and this is one reason why most of my routing is done this way and only minor operations on the table.

 

Finally the "backwards around the corner" was mentioned. Because I use a router only occassionaly, I usually forget this and have tear out.

 

Gerry, in spite of the very many years that I've been using routers hand held, I've never thought of or come across that very sensible method, thanks for the video.

 

Bump Cutting and Climb cutting

Gerry, you rascal, you found it! Hooray! You must have stayed up all night lookin for that. Thanks so much. I knew I had seen it somewhere before, just not in my short term memory or "My Favorite" either one. Drives me Nuts...well, just adds more to my current state of craziness! Bill

 

HI Bill

Here's little tip to help find things on the forum,,,open the Gallery for that poster ( Gerry ) look for the item you want, then just click on the item..it will pop up what you are looking for..

see a snapshot of Gerry gallery below

======

Gerry, you rascal, you found it! Hooray! You must have stayed up all night lookin for that. Thanks so much. I knew I had seen it somewhere before, just not in my short term memory or "My Favorite" either one. Drives me Nuts...well, just adds more to my current state of craziness! Bill

 

Guys,
(blushing)
I didn't make the video, give credit to the person that made it, I'm only the one who dug it up and posted it.
Personally I've yet to try it myself!

Like I once said in here;

This community is the sum of of the knowledge of all.
Only we must communicate that knowledge to each other via this forum.
Participate, teach and learn.

In this case, it was Bill's knowledge that a video existed, my (little) knowledge of how to find it.

Cordially,
Gerry

 

Gerry, who invented the method is not as important as the one who brings it to the masses. I have widely promoted ski and female template routing but have never claimed to be the inventor. In a similar way I have been promoting the metric system as applicable to template guides and cutters but you all know that I'm not the inventor!

Harry