Poplar is made of wood, right?

[Sharp Blade]

Er...anyway, I am making a raised feeder out of poplar for both of my dogs. (They each get their own because one is still a puppy. :BangHead: )
There I was dadoing my way through the board when the thinkable (if I HAD been thinking) happened. Chip-out. POOP! :crybaby2: :BangHead: :BangHead: :bcry:
Mine is on the face, all bright and shiny, glaring like a shiny red button waiting to be pushed. To say the least, it's noticable. Also, I was on my third pass when it happened.
Thankfully this happened on the first feeder. I will not make the same mistake twice. I was using my router table with a 1/2in straight bit. I TOTALLY forgot I had a 3/4in bit in the bit box. Guess what width my dado had to be. Grrrrrr. Learning can be so danged frustrating.

 

[D L Ames]

Anna, was your chip out on the face of the board or on the edge? If it was on the trailing edge you can prevent this by using a backer board where the bit is going to exit the board you are cutting your dado in. If the chip was on the edge, can you rip the board a little narrower on your TS to remove the chip out?

If the chip out was on the face of the board.........well then I must admit I am stumped, unless your bit was dull.

D L

 

[DaveO]

Yep, wood sucks. The nicest piece of perfectly machined wood will blow out a hunk, always on the last pass with the router. The fun part is when you have dimensioned all your wood, made all the jointery, finished sanded all the parts, glued everything together making sure it is perfectly square, and then you are routing the last little edge and crack there goes a nice hunk of your project. If you are lucky you can find the piece and glue it back in place and tell no one about it. I feel your pain, BTDT to many times to count.


Dave (if I didn't make mistakes I would make nothing at all)

 

[Sharp Blade]

Yeah, it was on the face. It did feel strange when it happened. Now, this is only my second time making a dado cut with the router table, so I chalk it up to experience. Or lack there of. The bit is still sharp. I made a test cut on some pine and got NO chip-out. Wouldn't ya know!?!

:BangHead:

 

[D L Ames]

Yeah, it was on the face. It did feel strange when it happened. Now, this is only my second time making a dado cut with the router table, so I chalk it up to experience. Or lack there of. The bit is still sharp. I made a test cut on some pine and got NO chip-out. Wouldn't ya know!?!

:BangHead:

How deep was the dado you were cutting? Where you making multiple passes to get to your final depth?

D L

 

[Sharp Blade]

D L,

I was making multiple passes. I did it on the third pass.

 

[Steve D]

You mentioned using a different bit forgetting that you had a 3/4" were you making multiple passes at full depth to get to the 3/4"? CHipout can happen at any time DAMHIKT, but light passes minimize the tendency. Use a backer board too as DL suggested to prevent chipout from the bit exiting the board at the end of a crossgrain cut.

 

[Splinter]

Now I feel better. I thought this only happened to me.:crybaby2: Especially in maple.:BangHead:

 

[Handturnedbowls]

Anna one trick I use is to make a slight vertical cut close to where my router bit will exit on the end grain, before I begin the routing.

I clamp a board in line with the cut I will make small enough that it does not hit the ends of my hack saw, and use this board as a guide to saw down just at an angle with the hack saw.

Essentially this cuts a relief into your wood. Even though you are not cutting the finished edge, this slot provides tension relief to the wood so when the router bit comes to the end of the board it is only cutting a very small shaving as it exits the end.

cad

 

[Sharp Blade]

You mentioned using a different bit forgetting that you had a 3/4" were you making multiple passes at full depth to get to the 3/4"? CHipout can happen at any time DAMHIKT, but light passes minimize the tendency. Use a backer board too as DL suggested to prevent chipout from the bit exiting the board at the end of a crossgrain cut.

I was not making full passes. I was referring to the times I changed the bit depth. Three times. The orientation of the board and my table had alot to do with it. I wasn't in the best position I could have been in. Limited support.

 

[rickc]

I was not making full passes. I was referring to the times I changed the bit depth. Three times. The orientation of the board and my table had alot to do with it. I wasn't in the best position I could have been in. Limited support.

Don't know how deep the chip is, but is it something that you could alter the dimensions (narrower) without it looking too bad? If it is only 1/8 or maybe 1/4, perhaps that might work. Just my two cents worth.

 

[rbdoby]

Don't feel bad, chipouts happen to to me a lot. In fact I've gotten pretty good patching them with a Dutchman. Cut out the defect and plug it with a piece of simular wood. Allows me to spend more time on a project that my wife wanted finished last month.

 

[Sharp Blade]

:icon_thum Great ideas guys. I lobbied for a new piece of wood this afternoon and am getting it. Yay! But, I will still try to salvage what I have anyway. Just for the experience.

 

[michaelgarner]

awww dont sweat the small stuff,,lol I know it sucks,,but just as my art teacher in school said, "there are no mistakes in art" the same goes for WW. You just learned a priceless lesson. And dont feel bad, man have I chewed up some wood before. Like not having the pressure rollers at the right level to support stock on a planer,,it dug in tearing out large chunks of highly figured cherry. That was a long time ago, but my father and I just made vaneer from what we could salvage and door knobs out of the rest. Lesson lerned, be blessed