The 0.02 inch mistake I see on nearly every hobbyist's toolpath setup

I have been running a small router table out of my garage in Dayton for about four years now, and I keep meeting guys who fight chatter and burned edges on plywood. Nine times out of ten it comes back to one thing, they are setting their finish pass to full depth instead of leaving a skin for the last cut. After I started leaving around 0.02 inches of material for a final pass with a fresh sharp bit, my edge quality on 3/4 birch went from fuzzy and burnt to glassy almost overnight. It matters because a full depth cut pushes the bit past what the collet and gantry can hold steady, so the tool flexes and rubs instead of shearing. I found this out the hard way when I ruined a $60 sheet of Baltic birch on a cabinet door frame in one afternoon. If you own a smaller machine, run your roughing pass within a quarter inch of the final size, then come back for that little skim cut at the same RPM but half the feed. Has anyone else noticed their spindle bogging down on the finish pass even after doing this, and if so, what feed and speed combo fixed it for you?

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annajenkins16h ago

What RPM are you running on that skim pass, and is it the same as the roughing cut or do you drop it? On my old Bosch router I had to pull back to about 16k on the finish pass or it would bog every time.

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