A router is a fantastic power tool for woodworking tasks but useless without some cutting bits to use it with. When I got my router last month, I decided to get a cheap collection of bits since I had no previous experience of using a router and wasn’t sure quite what I’d need (item now unavailable but looking suspiciously like several other cheap sets that are still for sale). They came in a plain wooden box inside a cardboard sleeve so I decided to pretty things up a bit:

To be honest, the bits aren’t that great. They have got me through my bookshelf project (almost complete… I’ll post about that once it is properly finished) but I’ve only used four of the pieces. Those were three straight cut bits of various diameters, the smallest of which I’ve already broken, and the flush cut bit. Before I’m done, I might also use one of the decorative moulding cutters too. I also think the bits are already losing their edge. On the sleeve it said ‘can be sharpened’ but I didn’t think that meant ‘will need to be sharpened quite soon’.

Still, although the bits are so cheap to not even be stamped with an identifiable brand name, they have got me started. In future projects, I’ll probably get some better quality cutters but I can do that on a more informed basis. I think I’ve also learned that using acrylics to paint the design was probably just making life hard for myself. I used marker pens to finish off round the letters and that would probably have done for the whole lot. However, I did quite like the cut out letters left over from the masking tape template I made: