Veritas® Cornering Tool Set - Lee Valley Tools

 

Use double stick tape [some call it carpet tape] and stick a piece of wood of same thickness minus the thickness of the carpet tape to the bottom of your router plate. This way part of the router plate will ride on the piece you are routing and the other side will ride on the piece you taped to the router plate. Put it on a flat surface and route away. Use either router you want.

 

Lots of different ways:

low tech- put a piece of stock the same height as your board near the piece you are rounding over so that your router base has a stable place to ride on.

higher tech- use Don's solution above, or a trim router edge guide (they are triangular with a bearing that rides below the bit to prevent tipping in)

non powered- use Stick's solution, or https://www.woodstockint.com/products/W1100/, but they won't work on the inside corners.

I like chamfers over round overs, personally.

 

Round over - follow the above methods of Don and Doug. Chamfer - just use a sanding block. In the long run it is faster than setting a router up. You don't normally need very much chamfer to change the look and eliminate that hard edge. One thing if you use a router that you'll have to look out for is the bearing on the bottom of most roundover and chamfer bits. It may stick down too far so you'll either need to cut them off or try to find ones without the bearing but that opens up some other issues because you won't have anything to guide them then without jigging up an edge to follow.

 

Bill...welcome to the forum...

Just to add to what has already been suggested...since either the roundover or the chamfer bit will cut the same whether "vertical" or "horizontal" you could consider placing the trim router on the wide side to profile the edge. Of course, this would not work for the inside edge but it didn't sound like you wanted that. Bearing guided or edge guide would still be required...if the bearing rides below the inside edge, you could sister another piece to guide the bearing using tape or other non-invasive means (clamps) depending on the depth of cut you desire.

Of course, this depends on your own comfort level...

 

I'm with Charles with the sanding block. Lot quicker, easier, less trouble, less mess to clean up. Yup, that's what I would do.

 

I like the sanding approach myself, if I'm only breaking the edge. If I want a full roundover on 3/4" stock I use the trim router...way less cumbersome than the full sized puppies.
Resting the baseplate on the wide face, with the bearing riding on the edge is just more comfortable and less stressful.
If it's already assembled, then do the inside edge first, with the baseplate riding on the edge, then the outer edge with the plate on the wider face.
I have to do exactly this today; I got marked into making a bunch of banner poles for Canada Day.
10-10' lengths all 4 edges...400 lin.ft. of edge in total (5 - 1x4's ripped to 1 3/4"+/-)...I will not be doing that with a sanding block!

 

Welcome aboard, Bill.

This is a good lesson for ya. A router table would have made that task easy peasy before the sticks were attached. Good future project for you to consider. Build a table top for the router or a complete cabinet. Good skill builder.

Good luck with the task at hand. As suggested above, a spacer block added to your router plate should do the trick. Anything to make it sit level on the top of the 1x2.

Note: Here is an example of how I routed the groove in a cutting board. I used mdf to provide a guide for the router bit bearing and a flat surface for the router base plate to ride on. The mdf was stuck to the board with double sided carpet tape. Hope this helps.

 

I just received a Woodsmith e-tip yesterday on making a chamfering tool. Looked interesting.

I can't seem to post the url since I've not had 10 posts but it's on their www woodsmithtips com web site

 

Thanks so much for all the responses. I ended up using a Slickplane that I had hanging in the basement and had forgotten about. It worked great. A little finish sanding and I got the look I was looking for. Easy too. Thanks again. Bill

 

here's and idea maker...
insted of trim go w/ chamfer or RO...

.

 

Nice little jig there, Stick!