Surfacing with T track issue

Hey John,

what depth of cut do you choose then?

Me personally would follow Makita’s advice in the manual and not use bits wider than 1/2" diameter. The hand trim router is in danger to be slowed down when using larger diameter bits, which because of the typical motor characteristics of a router will let it become hotter then and finally malfunction (see also warning in the manual), and it was always when using such a large diameter bit that a Makita reportedly began to burn and destroyed itself. See the links at the end of my above post.

But I know that many people use it anyway. In this case I would only remove a shallow depth per pass, and not leave the machine alone (and know where you master power interruptor and your fire extinguisher is).

The advantage of this bit is that with it, you can very well check and adjust the perpendicularity (tramming) of your Z slider / router, as per the Mitz Pellicciotta method, which is a method that works the better the larger the bit diameter is, because it looks at the direction of the patterns such a bit makes when it is not perpendicular to wasteboard surface. Works only as third step after you ensured your machine is rectangular (“squared”) (bar gauge) and coplanar (“not twisted”) (fishing line method).

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