anyone have a link for one in the US? I would rather not have to pay to ship it from oz. Thanks.
Austin S.
CAREFUL WITH IT:
I had just bought the pencil router bit (they also carry ‘em at surfhardware) and even got a new router specifically for the bit. My friend wanted to put some of the DOW foam on an anchor pulpit he was building. I was using the oak as a template to cut the Gorilla Glue’d foam to size. One little misstep, and it “touched” the oak and bent like that. It’s going CRAZY, still spinning at 10 million RPM’s and the router is SCREAMING!!! I hadn’t bought the trigger handle attachment YET, so had to let go with one hand and push the off button. My friend is SCREAMING at me to throw the tool, but I had JUST bought it, and didn’t want to let it go. I literally had bruises on my fingertips from holding onto the tool while trying to turn it off. Pretty fuggin’ scary really. RESPECT THE PENCIL ROUTER!!!
3 words to the wise:
“ROUTER SPEED CONTROL”
buy one and use it.
Hey Keith,
I used my variac for my hotwire for a “Router Speed Control”. Makes cutting through balsa a breeze even with my puny panel rouer. It’s a great feeling to see your tools do double duty.
Cheers,
Rio
Could you people cutting outlines with routers splain your setup/method for me?
A particular brand/model or modified router? Are you using collar/template guides/bushings? Is it possible to lower/expose the smooth part of shank to roll along the template maybe? Adding template material to one side of the base? Or do they make collar/template guides shallow enough to work with 1/8" hardboard templates?
do a Google search for mill ends, they work great for hogging foam, all sorts of sizes. Also look for CNC bits
and the thing about slowing down the router…keep it spinning fast, Darwin will separate the brain trust. The faster it spins the quicker you die…but then you just can’t push that router fast enough can you? You just need to speed that shape up by 30 seconds.
I learned my lesson, few years back one broke off…flew across the shop…ripped through a 3/4 in peice of birch ply wood. I was thinking gee, Wally… that could have been my chest. Slow it down, don’t push.
Porter Cables spin at 30,000 rpm. Foam cuts at 5,000-10,000 rpm max. Just don’t push.
It’s only foam.
Quote:
do a Google search for mill ends, they work great for hogging foam, all sorts of sizes. Also look for CNC bitsand the thing about slowing down the router…keep it spinning fast, Darwin will separate the brain trust. The faster it spins the quicker you die…but then you just can’t push that router fast enough can you? You just need to speed that shape up by 30 seconds.
I learned my lesson, few years back one broke off…flew across the shop…ripped through a 3/4 in peice of birch ply wood. I was thinking gee, Wally… that could have been my chest. Slow it down, don’t push.
Porter Cables spin at 30,000 rpm. Foam cuts at 5,000-10,000 rpm max. Just don’t push.
It’s only foam.
Thanks for the info; I respect your knowledge & experience and would appreciate yours and anyone else’s input-
Perhaps as suggested a router speed control is the best/safest option, but as I understand, they will not work on the newer ‘soft start’ tools?
For outline cutting , what’s your opinion on something like this - A PC variable speed model that runs as low as 10k rpm http://www.porter-cable.com/index.asp?e=547&p=4854
Thanks for the cutter/end mill terminology, it really helped in my search. Do you think something like this work in the same/similar way as the $90 pencil router bit for cutting close tolerance shortboard blanks?
http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMPXNO=1695149&PMT4NO=0
And the thing that is most curious to me, is the template guide question … what do the pros use to keep the router bit from cutting into thin flexible masonite templates?
The best idea I can come up with is this Milescraft product http://www.milescraft.com/router/1200.html with the changeable inserts and perhaps grinding the height of the collar down to template thickness?