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Routers in knife making

So maybe routers are not used much in knife making, but I do see some admittedly limited, potential use. Specifically, I have a number of hardwood flooring pieces (free samples are very easy to get, and you can get some really nice exotics) and I was thinking it would be nice to make a small presentation box to put a knife in for my son when I manage to finish one.

Never having done a lot of wood work, I wondered about practicalities of making tiny dovetail or finger joints. No table saw, no router, but I have a Dremel 4000 and wondered about a little plunge router attachment to play around with on some small Dremel basically fun and game projects.

Of course for real dovetail and finger joints, the old fashioned way is hard. A table saw, or router with a jig makes it much easier - whether a commercially made, or home made jig.

Does anybody have a Dremel plunge or table router attachment, and what do you think? I think I will likely see one from my daughter for Christmas since I use an amazon wishlist as a place marker for things of interest, and she asked me recently about my wishlist.

As always, my space is very limited so adding a good size table saw, or router / router table would be a bit difficult. I've already been looking at ideas to make a mini dovetail or finger joint jig using a piece of acrylic / polycarbonate attached to some wood and some clamps, along with a dremel and router bits.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michael Squier on December 23, 2016 at 9:10

Sounds like agood idea to me. I have a full sized router and I rarely used it untill I attached it to a router table. Now I want a netter table for it, its great.

Permalink Reply by allanm on December 23, 2016 at 11:51

Thinking - it actually seems to me that using a roundover, or even Roman Ogee router bit on suitable material could make a pretty decent finish to scales as an alternate to simply sanding.

Of course I have some ignorance here since I have never yet actually used a router, but I've been watching a lot of videos recently.

KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by Carl Rechsteiner on December 24, 2016 at 6:20

Got one way back when, maybe they are better now. Have to be real careful with torquing down the adjustment screws as much of the device is plastic - not enough it slips on you too much....well it's plastic. Used it sparingly and with care it worked ok, but now just use the bits in my drill press with X feed vice.

The bits are not made for rough bulking and hogging so work in stages and watch grain direction to avoid chipout at edges. Fun to play with and will work but you got to get close in to see what's going on.

If it looks like you will be using it a lot, you might consider upgrading to one of the rotozip clones. They have sturdier bearings to handle the side ways pressure.

Note - Nothing against Dremels, one of my favorite go to tools in the shop. I've probably gone through 100 of them over the years but find them very handy. I even have a Model #1 (all metal) and a Model #2 (half metal/half plastic) and they both still work.

Permalink Reply by allanm on December 24, 2016 at 19:47

100 down with two originals still working is quite a testimony to their usefulness Carl

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