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Your cart is empty.Whiteside Machine Company has been in the router bit business for over 30 years providing customer with quality products while at the same time striving to achieve complete customer satisfaction. Several woodworking magazines have tested Whiteside versus the competition and selected Whiteside as the winner for best router bits available in the market. Whiteside Machine Company was founded in 1970 as a general purpose machine shop in the basement of Bill & Bobbie Whiteside's home. Located in Western North Carolina near the furniture manufacturing town of Hickory, the company was often involved in making repairs or special parts for the furniture and woodworking field. A strong commitment to customer problem-solving, a can-do attitude, and innovative ideas, along with a growing core of dedicated employees, helped the business evolve into a manufacturer of woodworking equipment and tooling. Primarily through repeat business and referrals, the tooling business continued to grow to meet a demand for quality production router bits as well as custom application tooling. Today, Whiteside Machine occupies a 40,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility and produces a complete line of solid carbide and carbide tipped router bits. Whiteside's quality, innovation, and customer commitment is still present in our superb product line, in the design of custom tooling to fill special customer requirements, and in the development of special machinery and tooling for our own manufacturing use. As always, Whiteside Machine is continuously striving to improve our product through new technology, improved production techniques, and ongoing research and development efforts; along with rigid quality control, vital customer feedback and extensive field testing. Whiteside Machine Company.
JTC
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2025
Never having used this type of bit I didn’t know what to expect. Reading the reviews on this I was a mixed bag. After setting it up on the router table I eyeballed it to what I thought would be very close. Made the first cuts and assembled two test pieces. Made adjustments to depth and height, cut two more pieces and had a perfect corner. So I consider the set up to be very easy. There was some tear out on the 1/2” prefinished birch plywood I was using. That was solved by simply scoring the surface prior to routing. All in all this will be my go to bit for drawers. White side bits have always been high quality and you really do get your money’s worth out of them.
Jim
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2025
Good quality!
Edwin K. Hatler
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2022
This is my second bit of this type, this one outperforms the other by a mile. If you are new to this type of jointery I would suggest a set up block, it is well worth the $10 bucks for all of the time you will save.
Yopauly
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2020
Setup can be a challenge, but once done everything works great and I have made several drawers since and all functioning beautifully.
Michael
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020
It is so difficult these days to find quality products still made in the USA. This is one of them. Thank you for that, Whiteside.It's a great bit. Setup is a bit fiddly, but the instructions are good and once you get the router and fence all where it needs to be, it makes a great joint.
Sandy Kay
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2019
This bit requires a very precise setup to get a good joint. If you don't have a router table where you can make micro adjustments in bit depth and fence depth, don't even bother trying. You also want a router table with a measuring gauge for the fence depth because unlike other router bits on this one it is important that your fence be straight. Depending on the wood you use, you might also want a router that has adjustable speeds.The first time I tried this bit, it was a disaster. I got very close after several tweaks and test pieces but foolishly decided to make what I thought was a very tiny adjustment and then ran my final drawer pieces without doing another test joint. Never do that. My "tiny" adjustment threw it off so much that it ruined the drawer pieces and I had to start over with new wood. On my second attempt it took me 45 minutes of tweaking bit depth and fence depth but I finally got a decent joint.Whiteside doesn't appear to have a good instruction sheet for how to set up this bit and how to troubleshoot when you haven't set it up quite right. It's a good bit but people new to it need top know how to set it up. For that I am docking them a star. I watched some videos and used the Lee Valley instruction sheet for their small drawer lock bit.All things considered, I wish I had decided to make a simple lock rabbet drawer joint for my first drawer project. I am a 3 year woodworker -- still pretty new so factor that into my experience with this bit.
Bill
Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2019
Easy set up and nice square joints. Had it set up in about 8 passes and made a set-up block to expedite the process on the next set of drawers.
Beaver 67
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2016
This is a superb router bit and it worked exactly as I imagined, but there was a learning curve with using plywood.A reviewer said that it does not work with baltic birch, but that is incorrect. It works with a flawless cut, but you have to do some unconventional things.This only applies for the sides (the piece that will be upright on the router table) - the front/back (face down on router table) was a perfect cut.I am posting my instructions for 1/2 baltic birch plywood (I assume it works for other plywoods)1. Set the height for 5/16 (this will have a small tongue for the pieces, but once glued in place, it will be fine.2. Set the fence to be similar at 5/16 from the midpoint of the bit. You will need to fine tune as you do test pieces3. Tape the piece you are cutting using painter's tape - it helped*** CAUTION *** - this next step can be very dangerous (some say never attempt on router table - I did it anyway)4. Do a climb cut - essentially feed the piece in the opposite direction. You have to hold the piece with your left hand and use a push block to press hard against the fence. The piece will want to be thrown from the table, so you have to hold it and be very stable doing it. It also throws a lot of sawdust.*** CAUTION ***- read up on climb cuts and watch videos as well to get familiar.5. After you have done all of your climb cuts, do a traditional cut and it will finalize the cut.It is a perfect finish although there can be some movement on the piece that will take out some of the notch, but it does not affect the cut finish. It does not chip out and is very good. I did 60 cuts this way and had only one piece tear out (no tape as an experiment).If you do not do a climb cut, even with tape, it will splinter plywood for the sides and it cannot be used. Climb cut makes a perfect finish, so I give the bit 5 stars for my specific application and I am sure it will be fine with regular wood as others have indicated.
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