cutting handholds

[honeyhunter]

Does anyone know how they cut handholds in hivebodies/supers. Thanks and have a great day Honeyhunter

[bk21701]

Basically its a roundover bit in a height adjustable router, with a bit extension on an router table. Then the piece fed against the fence perpendicular to the table in between start and stop blocks. There maybe other methods.

One of my trades is a finish carpenter so I make all my own wooden ware minus frames. I don't go through the mess to use the round over bit/extension(extensions snap easily). I use a router table and a 3/4" rabbeting bit and just make a 8" long cut in the wood using a pencil line. When I use gloves, I've never had a problem holding onto my hives. Here is a picture of what it looks like. And a rabbeting bit is a easy find at lowes for around $10.00

[Josh Carmack]

I have two videos, one shows a difficult and ugly way to do it, and another you only need a router and a rabbet bit with a home made simple simple simple jig. It makes really nice looking square handholds with rounded inside corners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJfpDhNi2Gs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyyq4g51iXg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUMfIgTbfKs

[Kelbee]

I make all my own stuff (including frames). I cut some handholds once using a dado blade on my tablesaw. Position the board, raise blade to make cut, lower blade, change boards, repeat.

The handholds weren't quite what you see on commercial boxes, but worked fine, and I'm still using those boxes. But I still found the process too labor intensive, so haven't done it again. I find it much easier and faster to glue/screw on small blocks of wood for handholds.