# tear out occuring with raised panel cutter



## dbw (Aug 4, 2011)

I have a 3 winged raised panel cutter that I always have difficulty with as far as tear out goes. Just today, I had a piece of red oak w/alot of different grain in it. I was not paying attention initially when I started, was cutting against the grain and experienced tear out. (normally I look for the straightest grain boards for the raised panel to try and prevent that, but not today). Is there anything I can do to stop that from happening? Currently I am running the shaper @ 7K rpm w/5" 3 wing cutter. I usually try and use 3 passes to complete this cut. 
I did take another board and cut w/the grain and that did not seem to help that much, but did complete the raised panel. 
Any ideas?


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## old55 (Aug 11, 2013)

Welcome to the forum Dave.


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Dave, your cutters must be sharp when working with oak and other hardwoods... for router bits or shaper blades. You didn't mention if your machine is new or getting on in years?


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## Semipro (Mar 22, 2013)

Welcome Dave, really pleased to see you join the community, welcome to Router Forums!
Going against the grain is hard, it takes extremely sharp cutters to do it.


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## BCK (Feb 23, 2014)

do you put a back board or one at end of pass...and cut back to 5-6 passes to get to finished depth...should help and as mike said...sharpness is a big deal also etc....


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## MAFoElffen (Jun 8, 2012)

BCK said:


> do you put a back board or one at end of pass...and cut back to 5-6 passes to get to finished depth...should help and as mike said...sharpness is a big deal also etc....


+1 on highlighted.


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## CharleyL (Feb 28, 2009)

when raising a panel I always do the cross grain cuts first using multiple shallow passes and a backing board. Then I do the with the grain cuts using the same process, but the backing board isn't as necessary with these cuts. A good sharp panel raising bit on slow speed is also very necessary. You are removing a lot of wood, so do it in multiple passes with the last pass just a finishing pass to remove just a few thousandths. Raised panels are best cut on a shaper if you are in a hurry. Take shallow passes and don't try to kill your router.

Charley


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

panel bits are made to cut the panel in one pass per.side ..


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## Salty Dawg (Jan 24, 2014)

You could try to take some of the material off with a table saw first to reduce the amount of material that the bit would remove.


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## BernieW (Sep 12, 2006)

On oak or any other hardwood I do like Don says and take some off with a tablesaw and then take several light cuts. As others have said I would never try to take one cut with that size bit especially with oak or any other wood that splinters a lot. Sharp bits, backers and shallow cuts are your friend.


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