router based edging tool

[PeterT]

This is something I've been dabbling with on & off & its turning into a love/hate thing. I already had this smaller Makita router, variable speed, 1/4" collet. It has an accessory with kind of a rack & pinion motion which slides on the motor body & then clamp in whatever depth position. So I made an aluminum sub-plate to match the router base hole pattern...which was one of the most convoluted exercises in reverse engineering because of their bizarre bolt pattern. And its also tapped to mount my angle blocks. The stock slides between the angle blocks & gets chamfered with bottom edge of EM which is kind of a nice cutting mode.The initial idea was bolt this assembly to the edge of a workbench a chunk of heavy MDF or something

The good: It edges very well actually. My pics don't come out well but its quite crisp edge & nice finish. Aluminum is easy but even mild steel did not strain the motor or want to kick the part back in my face (~ 0.060" wide chamfer medium speed). I guess if wanted to chamfer a large piece I could just hand hold the router & zip around the edge that way too. I have an idea to remove the bevel blocks & mount a rail or a finger, that way I could use cove shaped bullnose bits or chamfer curved edged parts. Hopefully regular router carbide wood bits?

The not so good: It never occurred to me that a lot of metal swarf gets generated & even though my clearance hole is pretty close to 0.25" its a direct path for metal shavings to find their way into the rotor/windings via the cooling fan opening. Normally this end points down to the work, exhales air & its only sawdust. Metal particles is probably asking for trouble.I tried making a filter donut but I need something thicker maybe like that open breathing mesh stuff you see on dirt bikes? Maybe this is why guys have retrofitted die grinders instead of routers which are a lot more enclosed. The end mill is .25" dia & 0.25" shank. Unfortunately its carbide. The HSS ones I found were all 0.375" bodies, too big. I would prefer it to sit lower in the collet. Anyone know how to lop off carbide? Will one of those regular angle grinder cut-off blades work?

 

[Janger]

Peter this is awesome. I was fooling around with an end mill mounted in a drill for a similar approach. The router version though means it is portable to edge a big piece. I want one. To prevent shavings going in the motor maybe you could mount a simple piece of plastic pipe with a cover on the end - drill a hole for the end mill and a big one in the side for a vacuum port.

 

[PeterT]

Thanks. I bought one of these mesh filter mediums of fleabay to cut up & make a donut, but its on the slow boat from China. If I can get it in there snug so it doesn't interfere with spinning shaft it will hopefully catch the bad stuff & still allow fan breathing. But in all honesty I think its just flirting with buggering up the motor electrics on this particular style router. I'm already mulling #2 which is die grinder base, more along the lines of the Stefan model. Die grinders are essentially sealed in this area & meant for rougher service like this. So one option is end milling mode like Stefan's & my router. Another option which has merit is laying it horizontal so its milling on the side. There are pros & cons to each but right now I'm kind of favoring horizontal. Here's what the commercial units look like, price = ouch.