Routing wagon vice cavity advice

[AlexPeel]

I routed this yesterday and found that unlike Mark who went half an inch on depth on every pass that I could not do more then a quarter inch safely.

If I tried doing half an inch at once the bit would catch and jerk the router bit into one of the walls. Luckily I was able to learn this on the top few layers so the bottom went smoothly. The only thing I can think about why I had no luck with the half inch is that I am using hard maple and Mark is using soft. I have a brand new whiteside 1/2" spiral upcut and a bosch router so I dont think it was equipment. Problem was most prevalent in the initial grove in the current layer when I had material on both sides of the bit.

I recommend anyone yet to try this start shallower then half an inch and work up to it just in case you run into similar issues.

[allencrane]

I'm using a 1/2" Freud spiral upcut bit and Porter-Cable 890 router and am plunging down between 1/4 and 3/8 on each pass. I start out in shallower plunges, 1/4" to begin with. The bit will easily go down 1/2" as long as I take it slow, but the main reason I don't is my router does not have a suction on it, and any plunge deeper than 3/8 hogs out so much that it only takes a second or two to fill up the mortise with shavings and I am constantly having to blow them out, just so I can see my lines. By taking it a little slow, I can see my lines as I travel clockwise inside the mortise so the router doesn't catch and jerk. I also put enough pressure on the side with the fence so that the friction of the fence acts as additional bracing against kicking back. If I want to go deeper or clean out the base of the mortise freehand, I just don't get as close to the wall. Finally, I cleaned up the mortise walls, using the fence as my guide again. I was able to get really clean and square this way, and the chisel clean up in the corners was fairly minimal.

[Tom Crawford]

Router size could also be an issue. Marc used a Festool OF2200 heavy duty router that can handle a 3-1/2" bit diameter. It has a lot of torque to power through the harder woods without slowing down.

[bjorn rettig]

since this was a lot of routing, I used my circular saw to cut the two long cuts and then routed the rest. In my opinion that made the process much qicker.