Router Bridge

[Vaughn McMillan]

Here are a few pics of something I did last weekend at the suggestion of several Creekers. Long story short, I needed to flatten a couple of end grain cutting boards that were freshly-sawn on one side and glue-up rough on the other. In lieu of blowing the cutting boards up in the planer, I made a router bridge. This is a pretty elementary process, but I thought I'd post pics for the sake of any Creekers who might not know how easy it is to make a router bridge.

First, I built a simple frame out of utility 1x pine. In the first pic, the frame is sitting on a leftover piece of melamine particle board (glued together two pieces thick) I had sitting around the shop. (More on that later.)

Router Bridge 1 600.jpg

I often use this ~ 12" x 16" piece of melamine PB as a flat surface to which I glue sandpaper for flattening things. (Poor man's disk sander.) In this case, I used it as a platform to raise the surface of the cutting board to about 1/2" of the top of the frame. The fact that it had a piece of sandpaper glued to it was handy, since it helped keep the cutting boards from sliding around.

Router Bridge 2 600.jpg

I used BB plywood for the router base that "bridged" the frame. In these two pics you can see the stops I attached to the bottom of the bridge to keep the router bit away from the sides of the frame.

Router Bridge 3 600.jpg

Router Bridge 4 600.jpg

Continued in the next post...

- Vaughn

[Vaughn McMillan]

Lastly, I used little wedges to hold the cutting board in place as I ran the router back and forth across the top of the board. It didn't budge.

Router Bridge 5 600.jpg

I used a 1/2" straight bit in the router. Later, I used a 3/4" lock mortising bit. (It was a bit smoother and faster.) To flatten the board surface, I simply set the router depth a smidgen deeper than the lowest spot on the board. Once that's done. it's simply a matter of moving the router back and forth across the board to cut a level surface. I Here's a shot of things midway thought the flattening process:

Router Bridge 6 600.jpg

After the router bridge flattening, there was still some sanding to be done. Here's a shot of my custom 15+ pound B&D belt sander. With a 50 grit belt, this thing eats through material pretty fast.

Quilt Board 2 Sanding 600.jpg

Before anyone jumps on me for piling the weight on the sander, let the records show that the bearings on the sander are shot, and I'm simply trying to kill it completely so I can feel justified in replacing it. I was pleasantly surprised how easy the sander was to control with all this weight. You definitely don't want to get the sander edgewise, though. As an aside, I've since made myself a little downdraft table to hook up to the shop vac. It does a good job handling the typical belt sander sawdust piles, and it cost me all of about $15 in materials from the local home center.

Anyway, some sanding, dowels around the edge (strictly for looks, at request the of the customer), and some mineral oil later, here's the final outcome. (Yes, I used mineral oil on this one, contrary to earlier plans. Turns out the customer did want to cut on the board.) Final dimensions are about 11" x 11" x 1".

Quilt Board 2a 600.jpg

The Global knife is a kitchen tool gloat of sorts...I got a couple of them earlier this month for half price at a knife shop that was closing its doors. The lemon is home-grown.

Quilt Board 2b 600.jpg

- Vaughn

[john whittaker]

Another McIver moment from Vaughn......

That sander looks too heavy for me to lug around.

Great improv Vaughn...and I like the lemon.

[Brett Baldwin]

Will the lemon keep the wood from browning? Nice work Vaughn. It looks as though you are working out great procedures for getting those awesome boards finished out.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Vaughn, I have never had trouble planning end grain boards, but mine look nothing like yours!! I will keep this trick in mind if I get into something more intricate.

[Bill Simmeth]

Very ingenious! I love it when people come up with solutions like this. I really like your sander, too. I've heard some people call B&D tools "mickey mouse" but that sorta suits yours!

[Peter Stahl]

Vaughn,

Nice trick if you don't own a wide belt sander. Can you tell me about the cutting board? What kind of wood was used, how long does it take to do one, finish, etc. The cutting board looks too nice to cut on by the way.

thanks, Pete

[Jim Becker]

The Global knife is a kitchen tool gloat of sorts...I got a couple of them earlier this month for half price at a knife shop that was closing its doors.

I'm up to four of them and absolutely love these kinves. To me, they are like a Euro slider in the shop...smooth and well suited to the job!
------

Thanks for the photos of your router setup for flattening these boards. It's a great way to do this job!

[John Miliunas]

Great tutorial on the process and the board came out most beautiful! Nice job, Vaughn! As for the mod on the sander, will we be seeing this as an add-on accessory at the Borgs in the near future???

[Frank Chaffee]

Vaughn,
It’s really cool to see this generation of cutting boards. You just keep out doing yourself, guy!

I also like seeing your development of shop processes and fixturing. You are really doing good stuff in that shop of yours.

…And that belt sander!!! Curls were formerly in the domain of cutting tools such as planes, chisels and scrapers!

Frank

[Brad Tallis]

Hello Vaughn-

Thanks for the pictures and the write-up on the router bridge.

One thing I would be worried about it tear-out on the edges of the cutting board where the router bit enters and exits the wood. Did you have to worry about that at all?

I too would be interested in seeing how you make the wonderful cutting boards that you make. How do you cut the pieces, glue them, etc. I bet it would be a popular tutorial here on Sawmill Creek.

Keep up the nice work!

Brad

[Vaughn McMillan]

Vaughn,

Nice trick if you don't own a wide belt sander. Can you tell me about the cutting board? What kind of wood was used, how long does it take to do one, finish, etc. The cutting board looks too nice to cut on by the way.

thanks, Pete

Thanks for the compliments, Pete. This board is made of maple, cherry. walnut, padauk, and purple heart. The finish is simply mineral oil soaked in for a few hours then wiped off with paper towels. As for how long they take, I'm still not sure, since this one was made in stages over the past couple of months. I fabricate the patterened parts first, then assemble them into the board pattern, then slice them off. You can see the evolution of the process in this thread, this thread, and this one too.

I have requests for several more cutting boards like this one so I'd imagine I'll be getting the process streamlined over time.

HTH -

- Vaughn

[Michael Stafford]

I absolutely love the router planing jig for dealing with highly figured wood that will tear out if you pass it through the planer as well. It will also flatten stock that you might not have jointer capacity to flatten and allow you to then plane the opposite side flat. Not the fastest way in the world but it is really effective.

Several years ago, Woodhaven made an extended router planing base plate just for this purpose. It had a series of equally spaced holes that allowed you to plane the width of a board in a very controlled manner with a little overlap with each pass. I bought one long before I had a planer and used it to surface all my wood. Tedious but effective.....

Vaughn, I don't know if it matters to you but they make down cut dado planer bits up to 1 1/2" in diameter. They really do a fine job.

[Ralph Barhorst]

Hello Vaughn,

My wife is a quilter and I made the mistake of showing it to her. She really liked it and I may have to make one. She said that the design is similar to an "Ohio Star".

I agree that I would like to know more about how it was made. It appears that the four corners were the same and the pieces between the four corners are also the same. Did you make up these sections as logs long enough to be cut into four sections?

[Peter Stahl]

thanks Vaughn, you need to compile all this into a article for SMC board.

Pete