Best way to rout soft 'wooly' timber?

[fanlee]

Hi..
While browsing a timber seller's site I was convinced to try some sort of cedar for a body. I regret that now.

The timber is soft and wooly and I am no expert. Consequently I have tear outs & wooly rimmed holes everywhere. I am at the stage where I would normally use a router and template to complete the body shape, but I am hesitant to start fearing more tear outs & general damage.

What's the best strategy to adopt working this type of wood. Fast router speeds? Slow router speeds? sand don't rout? Use a dil shellac sanding sealer first?

I would really appreciate any advice.

Thanks,
Rob.

[demonx]

On burls and spalts, people generally treat the timber first with something that will make it a bit more stable. I haven't explored these timbers yet so the products I cannot recall off the top of my head, they're probably epoxy based.

As far as router bits, if you're trying to take too much off at once you'll ALWAYS get tearout. Make smaller passes. The more prone the wood is to damaging the smaller passes you have to take, even if you end out only taking off a millimeter at a time, we have to do what we have to do.

Another thing you could attempt is spiral cut bits, the last one I bought was $99 + postage and I still make small passes with it, but it does help the matter somewhat.

I'll sometimes cut a gbody by router, but I make several small passes, however theres also beenplenty of bodies I've shaped by bandsawing close to the line followed by rasp and bastard file simply because I didn't want to route it. So worst comes to worst, theres your backup plan.

[ckngumbo]

Small cuts and consider reversing the direction you route

[kiwigeo]

Small cuts and consider reversing the direction you route

Be very careful if using a climbing cut....take only small bites and take precautions to reduce risk of router (if hand held) or the work (router table) throwing you across the workshop.

[demonx]

What he said...

This is the last body I ever tried a single pass on - I've always done several passes since this.

Notioce the tearout? Do I have to point it out? This went flying across my workshop - I was checking my fingers to see if I still had some...



Luckily I was able to repair this and finish the guitar:

BUT IF YOU LOOSE A FINGER - YOU CANNOT REPAIR THAT WITH CLAMPS AND GLUE

[ckngumbo]

Holy Smokes!
Nice recovery though.