Baltic Birch Drawer - Flat Top vs Roundover?

[Bugsysiegals]

I’ve 5/8” BB sides for my drawer boxes and wondering whether I should leave the tops flat or use a roundover bit ... how do you prefer yours?

If with roundover, I’ve no roundover/chamfer bits and see WhiteSide has 20% off ... would you recommend any specific rounderover or chamfer bits?  What about for dado cuts ... I seen Sedge make dado’s with the router and while the table saw is easier for batches of stock, I liked the router for non through cut stopped dado’s so you don’t see the dado on butt joints. Are there bits for this you’d recommend which create “perfect” width for the varying thickness of plywoods?

 

[Sparktrician]

Amana Tool makes several undersize bits for use with plywood.  Look through this listing for some options.  [smile]

 

[Cheese]

I prefer the the solid carbide spirals.
https://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/collections/spiral-router-bits
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1698/7023/files/WM_Catalog_50_email.pdf?v=1603140047

[attachimg=1]

 

[Sparktrician]

I prefer the the solid carbide spirals.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a US/Canada/Europe manufacturer that made up-cut spiral bits in undersized dimensions just for plywood?  [cool]

 

[rvieceli]

Probably would want to break the drawer top edges a bit. So at least an 1/8 inch round over down both sides.
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/...over-router-bit-1-4-sh-1-8-r-x-3-4-d-x-1-2-cl

or 1/4 inch radius
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/whiteside-2001-roundover-router-bit-1-4-sh-1-4-r-x-1-d-x-1-2-cl

Ron

 

[afish]

1/8 is probably the most for me, just tying to break the edges a bit.  1/4 on both sides of 5/8 is going to be almost half round. I dont do both sides on the front piece.  If you do it creates a little groove that I see as a perfect dirt catcher. I do drawers on tablesaw pre cnc.  sides always ran full length so drawer front covers the dado grove and you cant see the back one unless you really wanted to.  I used to have 2 tablesaws set up the main unisaw for cutting panels and a bosch contractor saw on gravity stand with a full time dado stack.  When I needed to do drawers I would just flip it out and run the drawers through. Fold it back up and wheel it back into the shed out of the way.     

 

[Cheese]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a US/Canada/Europe manufacturer that made up-cut spiral bits in undersized dimensions just for plywood?  [cool]

Ya it would...but I've pretty much given up on that until the plywood manufacturers either standardize their thicknesses or fine tune their processes.  [sad]

I'm presently working on some prefinished Tigerply carcases that vary from .697" to .721". And I'm marrying them to a couple of 2 year old prefinished Tigerply carcases that vary from .712" to .736".

I purchased a CMT set of bits for plywood about 5 years ago and have yet to use them as they are always the wrong size.

For all those reasons, I added a MicroFence to my arsenal and now just dial in the spiral bit of my choice. Make a pass, measure, dial the bit in .010" over, make another pass & done.

 

[Bugsysiegals]

Amana Tool makes several undersize bits for use with plywood.  Look through this listing for some options.  [smile]

Thanks, I’d not heard of this brand ... I’ll have a look.

 

[Bugsysiegals]

I prefer the the solid carbide spirals.
https://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/collections/spiral-router-bits
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1698/7023/files/WM_Catalog_50_email.pdf?v=1603140047

[attachimg=1]

Is it the down spiral for dado’s otherwise up spiral will pull and chip out the veneer?

 

[Bugsysiegals]

Probably would want to break the drawer top edges a bit. So at least an 1/8 inch round over down both sides.
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/...over-router-bit-1-4-sh-1-8-r-x-3-4-d-x-1-2-cl

or 1/4 inch radius
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/whiteside-2001-roundover-router-bit-1-4-sh-1-4-r-x-1-d-x-1-2-cl

Ron

If you do them on the inside, how do you blend the sides to the front/backs?  Do you do it after assembled and then the inside corners don’t get touched?

 

[Bugsysiegals]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a US/Canada/Europe manufacturer that made up-cut spiral bits in undersized dimensions just for plywood?  [cool]

Ya it would...but I've pretty much given up on that until the plywood manufacturers either standardize their thicknesses or fine tune their processes.  [sad]

I'm presently working on some prefinished Tigerply carcases that vary from .697" to .721". And I'm marrying them to a couple of 2 year old prefinished Tigerply carcases that vary from .712" to .736".

I purchased a CMT set of bits for plywood about 5 years ago and have yet to use them as they are always the wrong size.

For all those reasons, I added a MicroFence to my arsenal and now just dial in the spiral bit of my choice. Make a pass, measure, dial the bit in .010" over & done.

I’ve a Bench Dog router table extension wing and can reverse my Incra fence which has micro adjust. I’d not even thought of using one of these bits in the router table and instead was thinking how to do it with the guide rail attachment and OF 1010/1400.  This is interesting as I bet it’s much quicker to setup the bit in the router table than to change out to the dado blade.

So do you use up or down cut bits and do you use 1/4 or 1/2” bits?  I try to stay with 1/2” but wondering if I should be doing anything in 1/4 so I can use it with the lighter OF 1010.

 

[Bugsysiegals]

I see some of these roundover bits have pilot bearings ... would you recommend with or without the bearing?

 

[afish]

yes 100% with bearing.  I consider Round over bits to be one of if not the first bits someone should own. I would go ahead and pick up the sizes 1/16"r - 1/4"r unless money is tight so you have them on hand. You can then also start small and work up till you find a radius you like. 

As far as when to do it I do it after the drawer is assembled.  all 4 inside top edges and 3 outside top edges.  I leave the outside edge that mates to the front panel square as mentioned before.  Yes this method requires you to balance and keep the router square to the sides all while riding on a very narrow edge.  Its not that hard but does take a little practice.  If your concerned about your abilities doing that you can cut some scrap the same height as the inside and outside height of the drawer and space it an inch or two away this will give the router base two points of contact and be much more stable.  Routing the drawer after assembly solves any issue with the inside corners.  I use a cordless trim router for this task since its easy to hold and quick. 

 

[Bugsysiegals]

yes 100% with bearing.  I consider Round over bits to be one of if not the first bits someone should own. I would go ahead and pick up the sizes 1/16"r - 1/4"r unless money is tight so you have them on hand. You can then also start small and work up till you find a radius you like. 

As far as when to do it I do it after the drawer is assembled.  all 4 inside top edges and 3 outside top edges.  I leave the outside edge that mates to the front panel square as mentioned before.  Yes this method requires you to balance and keep the router square to the sides all while riding on a very narrow edge.  Its not that hard but does take a little practice.  If your concerned about your abilities doing that you can cut some scrap the same height as the inside and outside height of the drawer and space it an inch or two away this will give the router base two points of contact and be much more stable.  Routing the drawer after assembly solves any issue with the inside corners.  I use a cordless trim router for this task since its easy to hold and quick.

Money is not an issue ... I’ll get 1/16, 1/8, and 1/4” to start but do you recommend 1/4 or 1/2
“ shank?  Also, I see they have ones with small pilot bearings ... should I just stick with the normal sized bearings?

Would it be easier to install the bit in the router table, set the height, and just move the box around the bit?  Could be an easy way to knock it out perfectly?

 

[afish]

I prefer 1/4 shank for small round overs so they go in a trim type router.  Yes a router table should work well depending on the router table to drawer size ratio. If your going to be building lots of drawers I would try and get comfortable handheld but thats just me and everyone has their own comfort level. 

 

[Bob D.]

A roundover bit will require two passes. Would it be possible to use
a double-roundover bit and run the pieces through before assembly.
https://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/collections/double-roundover

 

[afish]

A roundover bit will require two passes. Would it be possible to use
a double-roundover bit and run the pieces through before assembly.
https://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/collections/double-roundover

You could do it that way but then you end up with strange inside corners where there front and back panel butt into the sides.  Since the sides will have a radius that will be butting to a square edge you get a little valley at each corner and if you radius the short edge of the F/B you get an even bigger valley.  Rounding over after the drawer is assembled looks more seamless. 

 

[Bugsysiegals]

A roundover bit will require two passes. Would it be possible to use
a double-roundover bit and run the pieces through before assembly.
https://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/collections/double-roundover

I suspect the double round over will create a bullnose rather than just breaking the edge but am not sure as I’ve never used one. As far as routing before assembly, please share a pic of how the corners will look once assembled ... I’m not sure this would ever look good unless the front/back are different height than the sides but I could be wrong ...

 

[Bugsysiegals]

A roundover bit will require two passes. Would it be possible to use
a double-roundover bit and run the pieces through before assembly.
https://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/collections/double-roundover

You could do it that way but then you end up with strange inside corners where there front and back panel butt into the sides.  Since the sides will have a radius that will be butting to a square edge you get a little valley at each corner and if you radius the short edge of the F/B you get an even bigger valley.  Rounding over after the drawer is assembled looks more seamless.

Regarding a seamless appearance, it seems a regular bearing but wold not get all the way into the corner and would leave the corner with some excess flat material than the smaller bearing bit?

For example, this bit with regular bearing ... 1/8 radius regular bearing vs 1/8 radius small pilot bearing.

 

[afish]

the pilot will get you into the corner more but you may end up with some burn marks if your not careful.  I use the bearing bit and adjust the round over until I just get a slight roundover in the corner enough to provide a smooth transition and not a noticeable starting and stopping of the roundover.  It can be a fine line between to much roundover depending on your taste. The pilot bearing will give you the smooth corners with less roundover if that makes sense.  I would do a couple tests on some scrap to dial it in where you like it.  You might want to pick up a 5/32 round over too.  At the end of the day I would rather have a little more roundover than burn marks to try and remove.  The bearing bit allows me to quickly add the radius without needing to worry about having to do any extra sanding. For me its about striking a balance between delivering a product that looks good but can still be done efficiently.