recommendations for cutting shallow grooves in narrow wood strips

woody4249

A couple of points here.
1]If the router is grabbing the wood and projecting it like a missile, you are running the material through in the wrong direction.
2] Those feather-boards should ALL be angled like the one in my photo. This prevents kickback.They should be angled away from you as you push the material through.
Mike

__________________
"I'm not as green as I am cabbage looking"

wengang1

In my picture, the piece of wood is about to be fed in, so I'm pushing the wood leftward as I face the table.
I figured, if I flip the whole thing upside down, that's the equivalent of the handheld router going counter clockwise around the wood. Have I got it wrong?

I had the featherboards pointed away, but I was having a little trouble finding the right tension. Basically, I put the wood on the fence and then set the featherboards against it with very little tension and clamped it down.

I used my hand to push back against the small pieces so they didn't shoot out. It got the work done, but very tiring on the hands.

wengang1

Oh, another thing that came up.
When using a piloted bit, I had to put down a piece of wood against the fence the same with as the disatnce from the end of the pilot to the fence so the work piece would slide across right. Should I cut a hole in the center of the fence and let the bit sit under the fence for this kind of work? Or will the cut make the fence too flimsy?
The fence is two 1x4's glued at 90 degree angles with a 5/8 x 5/8 strip of wood inserted in the joint.