Is Oak Wood Good for a Router Fence?

Fences

• Wooden extensions improve the stability of adjustable router guides, many of which include countersunk mounting holes designed for attaching wooden fences. A perfectly straight board clamped to the workpiece serves as a temporary fence for cutting a dado, a straight groove in the workpiece. Homemade T-square fences fit perpendicular to the edge of the workpiece for quick repositioning. Strong wooden fences attached to a router table make repeated cuts possible without resetting the fence and give the operator a better view of the work. Accurate homemade fences can see repeated use if made from quality materials such as oak.

Wood Choices

• Tropical hardwoods such as Brazilian rosewood and cocobolo make the best choice for applications demanding exceptional durability and stability. Natural resins and oils in these woods keep them so stable that scientific instrument makers and fine tool makers once chose them as preferred manufacturing materials. American oak can't equal the quality of these expensive hardwoods, but kiln-dried oak performs well. White oak resists moisture better than red oak because tyloses, small cyst-like structures, develop in the pores of white oak and seal the wood. Red oak pores remain open. White oak resists curing for the same reason and often warps slightly.

Pore Problems

• Because the closed pore structure of white oak makes this wood impermeable, coopers choose this hardwood for buckets, barrels and other containers. In a router fence, white oak's closed structure can cause subtle problems. The closed pores prevent some moisture in the center of the wood from escaping. A kiln-dried piece of white oak often changes shape slightly after being planed to a perfectly true edge. White oak polishes to a smoother surface than open-pored red oak, but red oak holds a straight edge better. Red oak shrinks less than white oak but has nearly the same strength as the denser oak.

Strength

• Router operators place considerable pressure against a fence to keep the router steady. A long fence can flex as the router nears the center of the cut, resulting in a gently curved dado even though the fence itself measures perfectly true. Using strong kiln-dried oak for a router fence prevents that sideways flexing. An oak router fence can last for years, but needs an occasional tuneup. For the most stable fence stock, look for quartersawed red oak, with radial grain running parallel to the board's edge. True the edge with a plane, and test the edge against a square or carpenter's level.