Raised Panel height matching

[John Grossi]

I have a question raised recently when reading of a technique Marc Sommerfeld uses when using his raised panel set. His set is height matched enabling him to use one router in his table. He can set the height of the first cutter, and then swap the other cutters without changing the height. His bits bottom out on an o-ring placed in the bottom of his collet. My question is, are all the top name raised panel sets height matched? I am specifically looking at the Whiteside set 121. Whiteside is American made which is a major plus. But the advantage of Sommerfeld's set may outweigh that. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks John

[Jim Kountz]

No all of them are not. Most require you to do a test cut or use a set up block to set the height when changing between bits.
One good method of doing this is, make your cope cut first on the ends of all your pieces, switch to the sticking or profile bit and adjust the slot cutting portion of the bit to a tongue on one of your coped pieces. This will get you really close. Start the router and take one of your coped pieces and just run it up to the bit so that the cutter just nips the tongue on the coped piece. This will tell you if you are too high or too low.
I actually got this tip from the Router Workshop guys but dont tell anyone I ever watched that show!! LOL

[Ray Moser]

After many trial cuts I finally got the height right on both of my Freud panel bits. I then cut pieces that I marked 'SAVE for setup". Now I adjust the height to fit the samples and away I go. Of course the material has to be the same 3/4" stock I used originally.

[Bill White]

Now if the next project has material that is off by just a fuzz......
Bill

[Ed Peters]

than the rare occassion, you might be better served by locking the tools into their own router that you can then drop the router into the table as needed without all the fussing over the setup. Once I made this step, I never regretted it. The relatively small investment in hardware saved/saves me untold hours over a years time spent fine tuning the router tooling. I have even gone a step further and set up a shaper with my panel raising tooling, height matched to my cope and stick router tooling. It stays setup also so making doors or framed panels is a snap.

Ed