Climb cuts on the router

[TomFromStLouis]

For the record I went and crept up on the climb cut in small incremental stages of depth and once I had exactly the depth I wanted then I reversed the stop block and made the more natural cut in one pass.

[K. L. McReynolds]

I found early on in my uses of routers, climb cuts were made better on a router table. More shallow cuts are good.

Just for giggles(cause nothing got hurt) I also found out climb cuts against the fence was a HUGE NONO!

[spowers]

I’ve decided that Smarthinges are for me but half the time the router cuts are fed in backwards and the box body or lid wants to jump off course a bit.  This is with two hands on the box body or lid.  The depth of the cut is crucial and best set for a single pass. Any suggestions for more control?!

Feed the wood in the other direction.  Put another switch on the other side of the router table to ensure you can keep control of the router.  Not hard to do.

[GeeDub]

I use a similar method, although at a larger scale, for drawer boxes.  I clamp two auxiliary fences to the router table so that the box is captured and cannot move off path.  Maybe something like this could help you.  It makes things easier when you only have to control limited things when moving the material through the cut.

   

   

In this case the slot is centered so, no climb cut. The same method can be used when a climb cut is required. You just move the stop to the other side.

It is easy to get a 'point of view' mindset dictated by the router table fence. The bit spins the same no matter what your approach angle. My RT and tablesaw are ganged together so I get the benefit of an increased work surface for either machine. This, along with an auxiliary fence, allows me long, controlled router work.

[DaveR1]

I use climb cuts for cutting tenons and other times when I want very clean edges with the router. I do it with the Router Boss, though so the router is secured as is the work. No risk of having the work or soft fleshy bits getting pulled in to the cutter.