Spent $400 on a 'premium' router bit set that dulled after 3 oak countertops

I bought that 15-piece Whiteside set everyone raves about and the roundover bit started burning after the third oak job - are the higher end bits actually worth it or do we all just accept replacing them every few projects?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopherwilliams25d ago

...and that's the thing, everyone says Whiteside is the gold standard but I've had the same experience. Bought their big spiral set a few years back and the upcut started chipping after maybe 50 feet of plywood. Meanwhile I got this cheap no-name roundover from Amazon that's been through hell and back and still cuts clean. I swear there's no rhyme or reason to router bit quality anymore. You either get lucky with a random Chinese bit or you pay top dollar for something that dies on the second job. At this point I just buy midrange bits from Home Depot and treat them like consumables.

thomas_roberts25d ago

Gotta push back on that @christopherwilliams, I've had nothing but great luck with Whiteside bits for years. My 1/2" compression spiral has cut through hundreds of feet of ply and MDF without losing a step, still sharp as hell. Maybe you got a dud or your feed rate was off, but writing off the whole brand over one bit feels harsh when they're consistently the sharpest out of the box.