Routed my own drawer fronts and it actually went well

Everyone at the shop in Portland told me I was crazy for skipping the CNC and doing 14 shaker drawer fronts by hand with a router and a pattern bit. Halfway through the run, the bit started burning the maple on the third pass and I had to stop, resharpen, and redo two panels with new stock. But honestly, the slight variations between each door look way better than the machine-perfect stuff, and my customer at Riverside Kitchens said she loved the hand feel. Has anyone else had manual routing go sideways then work out in the end?

1 comments

1 Comment

rubyshah27d ago

Hold your horses there, because machine-perfect is what keeps your seams tight when the wood moves with the seasons. Those slight variations you love now are gonna bug the heck out of you in a year when one drawer sticks and the others don't.