# up and down cut spiral bits in hand held router vs table mounted router



## almost there (Apr 12, 2011)

up and down cut spiral bits in hand held router vs table mounted router-
I understand the difference between up cut and down cut bits. And I understand the difference between hand held router routing and router table routing. I also understand that a mirror image is reversed. What I do not understand or know, is - if I was routing a chunk of plywood on a router table and the only bits I had were up cut and down cut bits, which one would give me less tear out. I believe I heard that up cut bits were preferable when using a router conventionally, ie hand held, with plywood.
Lee


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Read the sticky threads at the top of this section for the answer.


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## tooler2 (Aug 11, 2012)

Mike said:


> Read the sticky threads at the top of this section for the answer.


For those of us with just a passing interest perhaps somebody can give a bit of a synapses? I certainly don't want to spend the day reading stickys.
Thanks, Rob


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## gomolajoe (Apr 23, 2011)

The answer is in the very first post in the sticky and quite easy to find. Thanks Mike for the high quality and informative posts!


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## Garyk (Dec 29, 2011)

Per my conversation with the Whiteside customer service guy the UP cut tear out is on the first surface it touches and the DOWN cut on the surface on the exit side of the board (you can avoid that with a sacrificial board under your project piece). I was making plunge holes (with a handheld router) on a game board 1/2" deep so he recommended the down cut for that project. Hope this helps. I bought 2 of each and they work great.


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## tooler2 (Aug 11, 2012)

Garyk said:


> Per my conversation with the Whiteside customer service guy the UP cut tear out is on the first surface it touches and the DOWN cut on the surface on the exit side of the board (you can avoid that with a sacrificial board under your project piece). I was making plunge holes (with a handheld router) on a game board 1/2" deep so he recommended the down cut for that project. Hope this helps. I bought 2 of each and they work great.


That sounds logical thankyou. It is a bit difficult to visualize how the movement of the swarf is related to the upward or downward cutting action during a plunge cut as opposed to routing a slot.
Rob


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## gmercer_48083 (Jul 18, 2012)

Mike, What is a sticky thread?


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

gmercer_48083 said:


> Mike, What is a sticky thread?


Gary, sticky threads are at the top of each section of the forums. They have great information and answers to commonly asked questions like the one in this thread.

You are reading the thread at the very bottom of this photo and the answers are in the thread I circled near the top of the photo. We are always happy to help if an answer is not clear to someone.

Rob, since it is too much trouble for you to click on one thread for the answer you will find it here: http://www.routerforums.com/router-bits-types-usage/28685-spiral-vs-straight-bits.html#post237388


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## tooler2 (Aug 11, 2012)

Thanks for the link Mike. I do not visit the forum often but I get a digest by email every day and I take a few seconds to read the titles. If somebody asks a question and it makes me curious or if I know the answer I click on the title and arrive on the forum. If my insight has already been posted I skim through to see if I agree with the general content and I leave rather than post the same info twice. If I am seeking the answer casually I am really not interested in chasing after it so if the info is not posted on that thread I will probably drop it. If somebody posts a link I will probably click on it though. In this case I looked at the sticky list and none mentioned upcut versus downcut and some of the stickies were pages long so I answered the thread, thereby subscribing to it knowing that some kind soul will take the trouble to respond to the OP and I would get an answer. Situations like this are an excellent opportunity for less experienced members to get a chance to share a bit of knowledge to repay what they have learned and feel like they are part of the community. A forum loses momentum if the same few people do all the posts and those who do post a lot get grumpy if they feel they are repeating the same info, never realizing they could just wait for somebody else to contribute.
Rob


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## eccentrictinkerer (Dec 24, 2007)

Mike said:


> Gary, sticky threads are at the top of each section of the forums. They have great information and answers to commonly asked questions like the one in this thread.
> 
> You are reading the thread at the very bottom of this photo and the answers are in the thread I circled near the top of the photo. We are always happy to help if an answer is not clear to someone.
> 
> Rob, since it is too much trouble for you to click on one thread for the answer you will find it here: http://www.routerforums.com/router-bits-types-usage/28685-spiral-vs-straight-bits.html#post237388


I've been on this forum as a lurker and contributor since 2007 and I never realized how to get to the 'stickies' 'til I tried poking around today.

You're right, it's easy to get to the stickies if you know the secret, but it's not readily apparent to the occasional or new reader. 'Stickies' only appear at the top of a thread. If you're on a subsequent thread the 'stickies' seem to disappear.

Here's what I figured out and I confess I should have figured it out sooner. 












*Mike's contributed dozens of 'stickies' and there's a heckuva lot of info stored up there. It's as if I found great new resource (that's been there all along ).

Thanks to Mike I now know how to make my 'old-school' C-clamps easier to use for my old, arthritic hands.*


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## tooler2 (Aug 11, 2012)

Stickies are great source of info but they do encourage lurkers to remain anonymous. In my experience the most knowledgeable people who should be encouraged to join in and post are the most reluctant to come out of the shadows. I do not believe there is a limit to the number of posts a forum can hold, so why discourage open conversations even if repetition is inevitable? I know it is nice for a newbie who learned something 3 months ago to be able to answer somebody even newer.
Rob


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Rob, we work very hard to provide as much information as possible to assist members. Some of our replies are very in depth with lots of discussion by other forum members and when this happens we make the thread a sticky. We do this so the information is right at the top of each section and easy to find.

You may of noticed that there is now a link at the very top of the forums to the beginners guide. We try to make it simple for everyone to get the answers they need and are always happy to help.

This topic about spiral bits is one of the most common questions we get. The explanations given in the sticky thread are easy to understand. The "tomato" explanation of how bits cut is as simple as it gets but was very difficult to come up with. In fact when Roland Johnson of FWW Magazine was giving his class on routers at the Woodworking Shows - Detroit he got stuck trying to explain the difference between shear angles vs straight bits. After the class I mentioned the tomato and his face slowly broke out in a big smile. This simple explanation makes perfect sense. Another question that is difficult to explain is how to tell the difference between an up cut and a down cut bit. The answer: An upcut bit looks like a drill bit and down cut bits look wrong.

You mentioned that it takes too much time to read all the threads. Imagine how I feel; I try to read _all_ the posts. I do not respond to all of them, I wait to see if someone else gives a response that works. I am going to review the welcome message and make sure an explanation of the sticky threads is in it. I encourage everyone to post on the forums because this makes it the best it can be. Thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread and keep up the good work.


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## gmercer_48083 (Jul 18, 2012)

Mike, The reason I asked about stikey thread is I did not see I listed at the top, I see now that it was the general folder (category) that we were in. I realize that you guys do a daunting task at keeping things organized. And that you personally have contributed precise answers to many questions. Thanks for that!


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## 48394 (Oct 25, 2010)

*Synapses are not synosis*



tooler2 said:


> For those of us with just a passing interest perhaps somebody can give a bit of a synapses? I certainly don't want to spend the day reading stickys.
> Thanks, Rob


Rob,
You may want to consult your dictionary before expressing your lack of energy to learn. Synapses are nervous system neuron information exchange points while a synopsis is a concise review of a particular subject. The stickys are more of a synopsis than any neural synapses.
Regis


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## tooler2 (Aug 11, 2012)

Reg66 said:


> Rob,
> You may want to consult your dictionary before expressing your lack of energy to learn. Synapses are nervous system neuron information exchange points while a synopsis is a concise review of a particular subject. The stickys are more of a synopsis than any neural synapses.
> Regis


Thanks for catching that, I suspect spell checker was my downfall in this case! It does not approve of stickys by the way.


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## JJuarez (Nov 8, 2013)

Thank you all for the "sticky threads" information lesson. I for one did not know about those threads either. Will be using that now also.


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## Garyk (Dec 29, 2011)

The stickeys are a great resource but most of us (by human nature) don't even read the safety information that comes with ALL of the tools we buy. I guess the old saying " we learn by our mistakes" is true to most of us hard headed folks. When most people buy a new tool or device their first action is to trash the instructions. After all we are smart enough to figure it out without reading some dumb information, or so we think. We are products of our own laziness sometimes.


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## Novice CNC Guy (Apr 22, 2014)

*Novice*

Thank you for the information on up cut versus down cut.

Which bit would you use when creating a object 1/4" deep in a piece of walnut?

Hopefully this is the correct place to ask this question.


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