Routing a melamine edge clean without losing square

**Robot** · 12th September 2011, 05:23 PM

hi,

Forgive my ignorance if this is a stupid question, but I'm very new and need to learn somehow

I'm cutting up some melamine for drawers & cabinets etc. The cut is good & square using my triton 2000 with a 60T Irwin blade to start with but I'd still like the edges to have a little less chipping before putting melamine edging on. I was going to get the planer attachment but I've been told that isn't that reliable and that routing is perhaps the better way to do the final clean up of melamine edges anyway.

So I realise if I wanted 200mm I should cut initially say 202mm before final cleaning but how do I set up the router to ensure my work remains a perfect square/rectangle?

If I used the router along the top with its own fence thing against the edge I'm cleaning, wouldn't one side of the fence be alinging to already routed edge whilst the other is on the non-routed edge, surely causing the end result to fall out of parallel?

If I used a straight edge on top of the board to run the router along, I wouldn't be getting exactly the same size boards from one cut to another (5 drawers would mean 20 precise placements of the straight edge and I'm sure there is a more reliable & accurate way)?

So I'd thought to put my router in a table (or get the triton router table top), and run the board between the fence and the router bit. This would ensure my final edge is clean and correctly dimensioned, because it is guided against the fence. However, is this the way to do it and is it safe? Something is telling me it isn't safe

Or am I way off track? Any thoughts appreciated for a newb.

Cheers
Robot

**witch1** · 12th September 2011, 07:02 PM

Robot
Normal procedure when routing an edge is to have the fence on the outfeed side packed out to the thickness you want to reduce the board by in very small increments.
A couple of playin cards distributed behind the sacrificial fence should be a good starting point, make sure they are firmly held in place.
As you feed the board through the cutter carefully transfer pressure from the infeed side to the outfeed side and you should achieve what you require.
Be sure to use caution, and a couple of good feather-boards, or push-sticks to maintain pressure as you move the board past the cutter, don't want to bleed on your melamine do you?

Be sure to have a couple of practice runs before you get fair dinkum with it, and I'm sure you will be pleased with the result.
regards
Witch 1

**Robot** · 13th September 2011, 11:18 AM

thanks witch1, appreciate the informative reply.

I hadn't thought of the staggering of in & out fences. I can see how it should keep parallel now. I'll set something up and have a go this weekend (I only get to play on weekends due to do doing this on my apartment balcony!)

**steve-37** · 13th September 2011, 12:57 PM

Hi,

I'm no expert but this is how I did something similar.

Over the weekend, I had to trim off 2mm from the rear of a shelf,
I just used a 1/2" straight bit, set the fence to allow a 2mm cut, but set the router bit depth so that it would only cut through 1/2 the thickness of the sheet.

Then turned the sheet over, removed the fence, changed the router bit to a flush trim bit, set the depth so that the bearing of the flush trim bit would run along the previous cut formed by the straight bit.

Regards Steve.

**A Duke** · 13th September 2011, 02:04 PM

Hi,
The Triton Router table comes with a selection of shims / spacers to set the fence up for this operation.
Regards

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