How To Use Profiling Router Bits

Today in the shop, what we're going to be doing is showing you how to use profiling routers. I could talk to you for a long time about cutters, but that's for another time, but you do need to remember one thing: some of the cutters you buy on the market are very dangerous and should only be used in a stationary router table. Something like that, a panel raised moulding, should only be used in a table.

It could be very dangerous if you tried to put it in the router. So just please remember that and read what's on the packaging. There are two makes of router cutter which I like to use here in the shop and that's Trend and that's Freud.

They're probably the best on the market, so spend a little bit more money and buy the cutters as to your budget. Don't use cheap router bits because the cheaper versions are very dangerous. So what I'm going to do now is just going to show you how to profile with the router.

All I've simply got here, these are half inch collets which are for the bigger machines, for bigger profilers. But just for camera purposes, just with a quarter inch cutter I'm going to show you how to profile. Basically, what the profile is going to do is going to follow the shape.

I'm simply going to router a straight edge here with a router, but you can router shapes with it. If I was to cut a shape with a jigsaw, my router will follow it with this little fellow here. This is called a guided template router.

Basically, this ball bearing wheel will follow the shape. So whether it's flat, square, or whether it's shaped, that wheel there will follow the contour of the shape. Just for camera, as I say, I'm simply going to show you a straight edge which in this case will be a shelf.

As you will notice, I've also not got any health and safety equipment on. I've removed this for camera purposes, so I can talk to you while I'm doing it, but please remember to wear yours. Once we've got the cutter set up and tightly spannered in, please make sure that this is done correctly because this is dangerous and at the speed this router is going to be going if this cutter comes out, its going to do a lot of damage.

So what I'm simply going to do is as I say, run this bearing guide in here to the edge of what I've got. No matter what the shape is, that will follow it. So there you have it.

As I said, the bearing guider has followed the edge of the board and I have a nice decorative bead on it. You can buy many shapes on the market and this is just a simple scotia. You can buy astragal beads, ovolo, etc.

and even as big as some of these. So there you have it, that's how you profile with a router. .