Router, newbie.

[rich1911]

I have a cheap 1250w router and I am finding that it's producing a lot of dust rather than 'chips'. It feel like its struggling power wise with a 14mm wide stright carbide cutter, taking a 4mm depth of cut in an old wood beam. (maybe oak?)

Will a decent Trend cutter work better? Is 1250w too weak?

I need to take a maximum depth of cut of 60mm from the baseplate, not in one go obviously! Will a long reach cutter work? I need to take as wide a cut as possible, 14mm or more preferable...

 

[Spectric]

taking a 4mm depth of cut in an old wood beam.

With a 14mm cutter you are trying to remove a lot of wood in a single pass with just a 1250 watt router. Take the cut in several passes and that will help.

For decent cutters look at Wealdon and Infinity as both sell quality cutters and think of getting a more powerful router. For a deep groove you want to plunge a series of holes and then remove the excess material, make sure the cutter is suitable for plunge cutting.

 

[rich1911]

With a 14mm cutter you are trying to remove a lot of wood in a single pass with just a 1250 watt router. Take the cut in several passes and that will help.

For decent cutters look at Wealdon and Infinity as both sell quality cutters and think of getting a more powerful router. For a deep groove you want to plunge a series of holes and then remove the excess material, make sure the cutter is suitable for plunge cutting.

Is 4mm per pass a lot? I have 35mm of material to remove, so I was hoping to take as much as possible on each pass.

Is there an optimal speed? The speed control on my router just has letters A to F so I don't know if this is actually controlling power as well as speed.