Router or Plane to Round Edges on Pine?

[Steve H Graham]

I'm going to slap an amplifier cabinet together today. It will be made from 3/4" pine. I guess the nominal size is 1x8.

Anyway, I need to round the edges of the boards. I want something approaching a 1/4" radius. Vinyl will be applied over them.

I can do this quickly with the table router. Problem: small bows in the boards may cause the roundover bit to make irregular cuts, deeper in some places than others. One one side of a board, you can correct it by pushing the board down at the contact point. If the board is bowed up in the middle, that won't work as well.

I can put the boards in a vise and use a plane to round the corners, but I am not the most skilled person on earth, so again, I risk irregular cuts. I am not eager to use a handheld router because they are harder to control.

Best solution?

[Kevin McCluney]

Use the router hand-held versus table-mounted.

[glenn bradley]

Use the router hand-held versus table-mounted.

Exactly this. A Palm router if you have one. The smaller the base the better it will track the contour of untrue material. A graphic from another discussion but, the principle is the same.

router-dado-example.jpg

[Steve H Graham]

Someone suggested using the router table and following with sandpaper.

[Bruce Page]

Someone suggested using the router table and following with sandpaper.

They probably assumed the material was flat.

[Lee Schierer]

Set up your table mounted router with a piloted round over bit and run the pieces through on edge instead of flat. As long as the edge against the table is straight you should get a consistent round over.

[Prashun Patel]

+1 on using a hand held router. A pin router will balance best and be easiest to hold one handed.

If this is not an option then you can use the router table with a clamp to serve as a feather board over the bit. You can also clean up any irregularities with the hand plane. It will be easy since you will have some good spots to reference off of.

[Rod Sheridan]

The best powered choice is a shaper with power feeder, it will take the bow out of the lumber.

The best non powered choice is a curved spokeshave, this is what it's designed for..................Regards, Rod.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

I am not eager to use a handheld router because they are harder to control.

A 1/4" roundover in a handheld router is about as easy as it gets. Just make sure you move counterclockwise as you route.

[David L Morse]

Set up your table mounted router with a piloted round over bit and run the pieces through on edge instead of flat. As long as the edge against the table is straight you should get a consistent round over.

^^^
This

If you're building the typical four sided box for a Fender or Marshall style chassis then build the box first and round over the edges with the box face down on the router table. It's much easier to keep the sides perpendicular to the table this way. I do this all the time with speaker cabinets that will be wrapped in carpeting. It's faster and easier than a handheld router and orders of magnitude better for dust collection.

[Steve H Graham]

I used the router table and pushed down real hard. That was my sophisticated solution.

I had some reason for not doing the routing after building the box, but now I can't remember what it was.

[Cody Colston]

Use a block plane or a spokeshave.

[Steve H Graham]

I like the spokeshave idea. I have never used one, but it sounds like a great thing to have. I have used planes (#4, #5) for rounding, and they work fine, but it's not really the purpose of the tool.

Even after I used the router and sanded, I had to do more work, because I was using wiggly lumber that hadn't been jointed. I had to plane the ends of the box, and that messed up the radii, so I had to go over the edges with 220 paper. Looks good. I'll fill the little crevices and whatever and put the vinyl on it.

[Steve H Graham]

As always, looking at new tools has turned into the Manhattan Project.

I figured a concave spokeshave would be a nice thing to have for rounding corners on stuff. So I started looking around. You can get a Stanley cheap, but everyone says they stink. A Veritas runs $95, which is a lot for what you get.

Then I started thinking about a specialty plane with a 1/2" radius in the blade. That seemed like a good idea, but then I realized it would have the same problem a table router has. If the stock is crooked, the depth of cut will wander.

A block plane will take more skill, but the short sole will reduce the problem with the depth of the cut, since it will follow the existing edge better.

I'm also wondering how you sharpen a blade with a 1/2" radius cut into it. It's hard enough sharpening straight blades.