Router 101: Router basics for absolute, total beginning woodworkers.

This is

router

101, the

basics

. If you've seen my show before, you know that I use my

router

in almost every project I do. It is the second most important tool in my shop, after the table. This video is for the

absolute

. Total beginner carpenter. I'll introduce you to the router and get you started very quickly with the basic techniques you'll need to know. If you already know the

basics

of using a router, feel free to skip this video. You can click on the link here which will take you to the second video in this series and you can make a real project with it.

So what can you do with a woodworking router? Take a walk around your house and you'll find all kinds of things that were made. using a router this clock on the wall this was all done on the router router router router kitchen cabinets look at the doors router router my messy desk milled edges din router those are just the basics, you can do creative carving with it, you can cut multiple holes you can do woodworking even you can just wood with a router this is my main router that I use almost all the time it's almost always mounted on my router table I'll talk more about that in a minute most routers are going to be similar to this now, essentially all a router is is just a motor that spins a little bit at an extremely high speed.

You can also get variable speed routers and you can get routers that are much more powerful than this one and a half horsepower router. It is a fixed speed router. I bought it for less than $100. Don't go crazy buying a router because the magic and fun of routing is in these router bits. Here are some of my router bits. You can buy them in games like this. one or you can buy an individual router bit. I just did a quick search on amazon.com and found 3540 piece sets for about $40. I'm sure they aren't the best router bits but they get the job done, no matter what router bits you buy they always come with these little pictures like this that show what that profile will look like so for example on something like this I used a rounded bit like this and you can see that like this so I recommend getting one of those sets because it allows you to try all the different types of router bits and you know which ones you like you can have fun with them but really I guess About 80 to 90 percent of the router bits I use are these straight, rounded bits.

If you have some straight and some rounded bits, you can do a lot of things. Some router bits will have these freely rotating bearings that are used for routing along the edge of a workpiece and are really nice to use. I use them a lot because there is no need to install any type of fence. Other types of router bits, such as straight bits or perhaps Cove bits, will not have that little ratio because they are intended for maybe. go through the center part of a board that you know to cut a groove or a groove or something, in that case you would just put a fence so it can move smoothly and show you the main features of a router, okay?

It's what I call the front of the router and you have a trigger right here that fires it up. The bottom of your router comes with this removable base plate that you can use to add special accessories, like this jig holder. cutting I won't go into cutting templates in this video, but you can find a lot of information about it. You will also remove the motherboard to connect your router to your router table. Now to change router bits, my router has this little mechanism. Also, when you switch it to this side, it locks the collar and this is the collar that holds the bits, so when it's in its locked position, you can put a bit in there, tighten this nut and then use a wrench.

Even to tighten it all the way, when you are ready to router you will snap it back into the unlocked position and be able to rotate freely. The other thing a router will have is a way to adjust the depth. The mine has this ring. that you turn so when you turn that ring you can see the bit here it's going to come up slowly so you can set the depth of any cut that you're going to make once I have my depth set I just put this in place and don't don't move yeah , man, the router is a very noisy tool.

When you use a router, you really need hearing protection and you definitely need safety glasses because those wood chips fly everywhere, so I've locked it in a Roman. Ogee bit with the bearing on my router. One important thing to know about your router is that the bit rotates clockwise while facing down on the top of the router and the reason why that is important is so that the router just doesn't move . away from you, if the router bit goes clockwise, it goes into a workpiece on the left side of the workpiece on the left side of the router, you will know because the router chips will come out the front and they won't come towards you, imagine that.

This is a desk or a table or something that you fill and want to treat its edges. I'm going to use that Roman ogee bit and the router, the flat part of the base is just going to be flat, so here I can see that bearing and what I'm going to do is when I turn it on I'm going to start slowly running it through the work piece. until that bearing touches the side of this wood and now that edge is treated with the Roman ogee profile, so that's basically what you need to know about hand routing: keep the base plate flat against the work surface, go slowly and make sure you feed from the left side of the router forward, but I have to tell you that for most wood work you don't.

I'm going to use a portable router almost everything I do in my shop with the router I use the router table so if you are setting up a woodworking shop and you have purchased the second most important tool for your shop the router and you have purchased a few straight and some rounded bits the last thing you should get is a router table. I have a store bought router table. This is a craftsman router table and it's quite nice because it has a little on/off switch on there. but all router tables are essentially a table with a hole in it.

You can buy router tables like mine for under $100 or you can make your own. Take a look at this one. This is one that Warren Downs sent me. He said he made this router. table for 15 dollars in less than 15 minutes and hey, it works perfectly the way it works: you take your router and mail it backwards. Here there are holes in the table top that you can screw it into and there is the router mounted underneath. there and I have it plugged into this box and the box is plugged into the wall so I can turn on the router just by pressing this button and my router comes with this guide that just screws on and slides back and forth so whatever whatever type it is.

Of the router table you get, it will come with a fence and if you make one, you must have the fence. My router table and most router tables will come with some type of miter gauge, this is not the one that came with it because well. I never really use it so I don't even know where it is. I couldn't find it, so I don't think you need it to also come with this security shield, but again, it just gets in my way. I don't see anything with it no I always leave it up and when I put a router bit in there it comes with these little plates that clip in there just to create a smaller hole so the work piece you know doesn't fall in there. tent that just fits into the back of this fence so when I'm routing most of the wood chips are absorbed right into it.

One of the things I don't like about this fence is that this hole is too big, so if I'm passing a little piece through which you can get back into that hole, so what I've done is just make this little extra fence. separated and it's made of MDF and I just clamp it like this, great for this demonstration of what I've done is I installed a quarter inch straight bit into my router and I'm just going to run it through to make a slot in this piece of wood. The most important thing to know is when you are running wood.

Across your router table, always go from the right side of your router to the left side of your router because remember that when your router is upside down the blade rotates counterclockwise and therefore you want to feed that if you fed in the opposite direction. It's very easy for wood to fly away, another thing to keep in mind is that you should never cut too much at once, maybe if I want this slot to go halfway, I probably don't want to do that. that I'll just do one pass with this part up, you know exactly where it is, and then I'll start raising it a little bit higher, a little bit higher all the while keeping my board nice and tight against the fence on a cut like that. can be useful when you want to place a panel in a slot like that.

Say you know. I want to make a box or something. I thought about treating these edges and installed a chamfer bit and it's only 45 degrees. bit at an angle and I pushed the guide out of the way because I don't need it because it has one of those bearings so now I can run it through and let it ride along the bearing so that gives you an idea of ​​how to use the guide and how to use a bearing bit to create that chamfered edge and that's mostly what I wanted to cover as an introduction to the router, obviously I've just scratched the surface of the router's capabilities with all the bits and techniques available, the possibilities are endless, definitely get a book on more advanced router techniques, search the internet, there is a lot of information about the router, but I think this video is enough to get you up to speed on using that router now if you want. to go ahead and dive into your first router project, it's a cool little picture frame, click here and that link will take you to the second video in this series, thanks for watching guys, I'll talk to you later.