Sanding in radius routed tracks (Finger slots Chopping brd)

[craigjsmith]

Morning Guys...

I have just made my first solid cherry wood chopping boards... And I am more than happy with the way they have turned out...

Only issue I have at the moment is that i routed out finger slots on either side and at each end there is burning.... HELP, how do i sand these out...... I tried for ages last night with sheets of sand paper and it simply takes far too long..... I also tried my dremel with small belt sanding discs but ended up with more as the rubber from the spindle made marks....

Am i missing a trick here.... Clearly i need to improve my routing to save the burn in the first place.... But how do i deal with these just now quickly and effectively...?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLeNd2n...JI8w0/?taken-by=the_one_and_only_smiddy&hl=en

You can see the burn in the corner of the finger holes...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...546.1073741829.100010937591711&type=3&theater


Thanks in advance for your help..


Craig

 

[Phil Pascoe]

One way of avoiding any marks or small tears is to leave your router set as for the last cut, then sand the your piece. Be aware though that you can only do this in one plane - it can totally mess up a complex moulding if you do it the wrong way. If using a bearing guided cutter you can put a piece of tape around the bearing to start then remove it for the final cut. Either way, run the router over it again quite quickly as you're only taking off a gnat's whisker, and the few thou difference is often enough to remove any burns.

 

[ED65]

Obviously with router burn prevention is better than cure so you do want to minimise it by taking one last skimming cut with the router where you can. A sharp, good-quality router bit can help loads as well. But still it's not always possible to avoid all scorching, specially if pausing for a moment at the start and end of a stopped groove.

Where it happens that you do need to remove scorching it might be necessary to adjust your expectations to how long it actually takes. Most sanding jobs take longer than you expect when you're new to them, and longer than you want after that :lol: What I'm saying is the maybe the sanding wasn't taking far too long, maybe it was taking as long as it needed.

 

[AndyT]

Just a suggestion - as the real answer is to improve your technique and avoid the burning in the first place, why not treat this as a practice piece and not worry about sanding?

If you want to avoid waste, you could always colour the rest of the groove to match the burn (Indian ink and a small brush would be good) and make a mistake into a feature!

 

[Chrispy]

I find a small scraper made from a bit of bandsaw or hacksaw blade shaped to match the router cutter works very well for removing any scorch marks.

 

[wcndave]

I had some burning with a router earlier, and learned that actually going faster helped. Sounds odd, but you end up with the bit on slow speed, and move fast, so you have many less bit rotations in the same place. Works a treat. However you need to leave a small final pass for it to work.

Removing is a pain, especially in a groove like that. Why not re-route and make the groove just a gnats bigger?

 

[MattRoberts]

Wrap a large dowel / tube in sandpaper and pop a bit of masking tape on to hold it.

 

[ED65]

I find a small scraper made from a bit of bandsaw or hacksaw blade shaped to match the router cutter works very well for removing any scorch marks.

Given the choice I would scrape in preference to sanding any time it's possible. Not sure how it would work here though, I get very mixed results scraping end grain.

 

[nev]

Not a suggestion but a question, if scraping is the way to go can one scrape with the router bit (out of the machine)? or does a scraper need to be flexible?

 

[MattRoberts]

Technically if you could hold the bit in the right way and it was sharp enough, you could. In reality, you won't. Scrapers work by having a very fine burr on the edge. The flexibility just makes them easier to hold, and provides a convex camber shape so you don't leave marks from the edges

 

[Chrispy]

Not necessarily flexible but manoeuvrable and nice and sharp with a burr helps.

 

[craigjsmith]

Well thank you all for the comments.... I like the advice about shaving the burn wit has the router at the end to save sanding... this is something I will improve on....

I am going to use the two sample boards in the house and make some new ones... thanks all very much...