# Cutting oak and pine



## bigone5500 (Feb 9, 2014)

When cutting these two types of wood with a router, should one use different speeds with the same bit or does it matter? I know oak is harder than yellow pine but I don't know if it makes a difference to the cutter.


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## RobinDobbie (Jan 31, 2013)

You want to go as slow as you can without getting a rough cut. 

_"The bottom line is this: run your router at the lowest RPM that delivers clean results at a comfortable feed rate. If you get good results at one speed, try again 1000 RPM slower. When cut quality declines, you just identified optimum RPM as the next higher speed."_


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## del schisler (Nov 5, 2009)

bigone5500 said:


> When cutting these two types of wood with a router, should one use different speeds with the same bit or does it matter? I know oak is harder than yellow pine but I don't know if it makes a difference to the cutter.


when cutting pine get ready to clean the bit, the gum in the pine will build up on the bit, you will see, i used pine once and never again, i know you can get good item's out of it , but i will pass on pine good luck as far as speed change i didn't slow down on eather wood


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## bigone5500 (Feb 9, 2014)

del schisler said:


> when cutting pine get ready to clean the bit, the gum in the pine will build up on the bit, you will see, i used pine once and never again, i know you can get good item's out of it , but i will pass on pine good luck as far as speed change i didn't slow down on eather wood


I'm with you on the oak. I do like how it looks when finished. However, pine is sooo much cheaper. Cleaning the bit is not really a problem to me...yet. What I am working with at the moment is a bunch of pallet wood.


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## BaldEagle2012 (Jan 25, 2012)

Pine pitch builds up so fast on a saw blade, very time consuming to clean, and one time I broke a band saw blade, bc of that, and had just cleaned it the day before. No more pine in my shop unless it is a 2 x 4 for construction.


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