What speed for slot cutting?

[ivwshane]

I got my whiteside slot cutting bit and I'm ready to route the sides of my cab. I tried looking on whitesides website to find out speed I should set my router to but I couldn't find any info.

Any one have a recommended speed for a 1 7/8 slot cutter?

[Franco B]

Your best bet will probably just to have a play and find what speed and manual feed rate works for you and your router with with material you are using.

Just make sure you have your slotting cutter on the right way round. It does cut if you have it the otherway round, it will just smoke alot (as I found out the other week  )

I cut the slots in my MDF CP ends the other day using the max speed of my router which is ~20,000RPM and fed it fast enough so that the bit did not burn but not too fast so that it was putting excessive load on the motor.

Needless to say make sure you are wearing the correct PPE.

[ivwshane]

How do you tell what side is supposed to face up? Should the side that has writing on it face towards the motor or away?


I'll be making some test passes but I didn't want to have anything crazy happen the first time I try it.

[Franco B]

IIRC the spindle should turn clockwise when the router is on the table. There should be an arrow on the body of the router stating the spindle rotation direction.

Just go steady and take your time 

[TOK]

My router is single speed, so I can tell you running at full speed works great... You want the face of the blade going forward into the wood, not the slope. Make sure the router is up to speed before it touches the wood, and don't let off the trigger until it is completely out.

[ivwshane]

Thanks guys!

It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Routing mdf is like routing butter, it feels like nothing.

I set my router speed to 18,000 and it was fine.

[Franco B]

You still have fingers so im guessing everything went ok  Good job 

Routers are awesome, they are by far my favourite hand tool.