Buy Freud 99-039 Variable Height Finger Joint Router Bit with 1/2-Inch ShankFreud 99-039 Variable Height Finger Joint Router Bit with 1/2-Inch Shank Product Description:
- Use this bit for joining wood edge-to-edge or end-to-end
- Kickback reducing design
- Individually computer balanced
- Precision ground for the smoothest cuts
- Covered by Freud's limited lifetime warranty
Product Description
Fully adjustable to produce finger joints up to 1 25/32" thick.Ideal for joining wood edge to edge or end to end.Produces a joint that is stronger than the wood itself.Replacement cutters available and uses arbor #60-152. Application: cuts all composition materials, plywood, hardwood, and soft wood.Use on CNC and other automatic routers as well as table-mounted portable routers.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
good joints once you firgure out how to use it.
By J. Baker
My only complaint (after practicing with the finger joint bit all afternoon) is the limited instructions that come with it. Safety advice only. You have to figure out yourself how to use this properly, but once done it makes tight joints.First thing to know is that all cutter heads need to remain on spindle to have to nut engage the threads, cutters you don't need are placed above the wide top cutter and just "cut the air" above your workpiece.I used it on a shaper with a mitre gauge. Was impossible to hold the workpiece tightly against gauge so I built a sacrificial fence (this also reduced chipping as the cutter exits the back side). First attempt was too deep a cut and bit pulled work free from my clamp AND knocked my mitre gauge off 90 degrees. This made next hour's worth of practice confusing as the cut was deeper on entering the wood than on exited. Getting the mitre gauge back to 90 degrees mitre solved this.Cutter does indeed cut 5/16" deep as they say, so I started marking a 5/16" guideline on my workpiece and aligning this to the end of my fence; this allowed me to touch the collar bearing but also to clamp the workpiece to my fence. Pull the workpiece slowly thru as a lot of wood is being chopped if all or most of the cutter heads are used.I had to adjust height of bit for mating halves. I measured from the side of the workpiece cut by the wide top cutter to where the last narrow cutter (one above collar bearing) ended. This distance became the height of the bottom cutting edge on the wide top cutter and it fits beautifully.All in all a great product.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.Practice first
By Peter Larson
What a neat router bit! It's long enough that you can join something thicker than a 2x4. I joined some 2x6 planks for practice, and I didn't need all the cutting blades. I used this with a 2 HP handheld router, and I used 5 of the 6 blades for cutting (the last was beyond the bottom of the wood, cutting air. It worked well. It takes some practice with this bit to get it right. I definitely recommend 2 passes: 1 deep cut, and 1 cleanup pass. The reason it gets 4 stars instead of 5 is because it comes with no instructions at all. If you have never seen how to use this for thinner pieces of wood, you might be puzzled. The trick is to move the thick cutter up the shank, putting the remaining cutters on the end.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent finger joint bit
By Kris
I got the Freud 90-039 finger joint bit because it was the only bit I could find that would handle wood more than 1.5" thick. I used the bit to join a beefy desktop made of 8-quarter (1.58" thick) white oak. It made a very precise joint in 1 pass on the router table (some posts I've read said to use multiple passes and I'd agree, but getting the 60" long boards through in one pass made things much faster and easier... I just took it nice and slow). The trick with this bit is set-up. You'll need a dead-flat router table surface and some careful tests. I used some scrap of the same thickness as my workpiece to set up the initial height and then got the second setting through trial and error. I used these scrap pieces as templates for additional set-ups. Granted, you'll need to make additional tests for each wood thickness you finger join. I very much agree with other reviewers that instructions would be pretty helpful - the bit comes with none and it's not completely intuitive to the first time user. One other important note: Setting your fence so that it is exactly in-line to the bit's bearing is crucial to tight-fitting joints (this is what sets the depth of the joint and getting the ends of the joints to meet perfectly is what makes for a seamless finger joint). I had to give it a few tries on my homemade router table. Another tip I learned only after watching some videos of finger bit set-up is to stagger the blades, thus reducing the load on the bit by having only a few of the teeth contacting the wood at a time. I'd recommend this bit if you need a tight-fitting finger joint and plan to join thick boards.
Latest Price: See on Amazon.com!
More Info: See on Amazon.com!
See Customers Review: See on Amazon.com!
