Not stacked, piled. :-) It was more of a materials handling problem than a
milling problem. The situation was I was working in a space 54' long and
about 8' between the wall and the station moulds. At one end is a stack of
400 very bendy 1&1/8 x 1&3/4 strips 16' long and I could only handle about 5
strips at a time safely. I set up a Shopmate bench with the router table on
it at the end of the pile. Then about 5' further on a pair of long
sawhorses about 6' apart. The spacing kept the strips reasonably straight
without sagging to much between the supports. They are going to sag some
but you want the ends to meet the table as level as possible.

I would load up a pile of 40 to 50 strips at the wall end of the saw horses,
grab one and kind of flip it into the middle even with the router. After
cutting the fingers I rolled the strip to the other end of the saw horses.
When I made it through that batch I moved the router to the mould end and
move the router to the other end of the sawhorses and repeated the process
rolling each strip to the wall end . When the batch was finished I piled
them up at the other end of the shop. The idea was to move all the strips
the minimum number of times.

I chose the Amana 2 wing finger joint bit because it cut the deepest fingers
I could find. The fingers are almost 3/4" deep and a bit thicker than
others I looked at. That was ideal for the thickness I had but if you are
working with thinner strips you will probably do better with a shallower cut
and thinner fingers like the CMT or Whiteside. Do not go with a cheap
finger joint bit. The quality of the carbide controls the sharpness and
wear. You will be cutting across the grain so anything less than very sharp
will rip big splinters from the edge as it comes out of the strip. A good
bit is going to set you back $70 to $80. It took a bit of fiddling to set
the bit at just the right height so that I had half a finger on one side and
half a groove on the other. That way I could cut both ends without
adjusting the bit.

The key to control is to feed the strip from the side and against the
rotation of the bit. Press down and forward so the strip stays flat on the
table. Take a little less than a quarter inch at a time and make 3 or 4
passes. Last pass should be very light to take care of any tear out. Tear
out should not be a problem if you keep the passes shallow enough and the
wood is not to dry. I kept a piece of strip about a foot long close to the
table in case a strip started to tear out on the first pass and used it as a
backing block for the rest of the passes. If all the strips start tearing
out it is time to take the bit to the sharpening shop. Other than a quick
pass with a very fine hone across the face of the cutters don't try to
sharpen a carbide finger bit yourself. You will only screw up an $80 bit.



--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"Dave W" wrote in message
...
Glen,
Thanks for the responses. A couple of questions arise. How did you make
the router behave while doing the end grain of the strips? You also
mentioned that you stacked the strips before routing. Were they stacked
one on top of another? I don't have the picture. Thanks for the help.
Dave
"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
news:l5YSg.11169$rg1.1096@dukeread01...
I should add that had I to do it over again I would look seriously at
pre-cut strips or Duracore. It was rather distressing to watch as over
the process my beautiful white cedar logs were gradually reduced to piles
of sawdust, planer chips, and router dust. From green log to finished
strip I would guess I lost 70% of the weight.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com