Almost every piece of furniture including tables, dressers, desks, and china cabinets have a top. This top needs some form of edge detail to finish it off. This is where the Classical Bead router bit (59-502) shines. It can be used with the workpiece face-up or face-down depending on the desired look. Plus, it can easily be paired with other decorative moldings to create beautiful, classic profiles. A great thing about this router bit is that it can be used with material from 3/4"-thick up to a full 1"-thick depending on the desired look for your project.
By running the workpiece through the router bit face-up or face-down you can produce two different details. For instance, if I'm working on a tall cabinet where the top will be above eye level, I like to run the workpiece through the router face-up. This makes the larger radius more pronounced and gives me a very attractive detail that is pleasing to the eye while producing a crown molding effect.
For a tabletop, the workpiece can be run either face-up or face-down depending on the desired look. I like to run the workpiece face-down to have that longer 1" radius showing along the top edge of the tabletop.
For a desk, on the other hand, you may decide to run the workpiece face up, creating a 1/4" radius on the top edge with no fillet. This creates a comfortable edge to rest against while writing or typing.
By choosing the thickness of the material you can decide if you want a fillet on the top, bottom, or both. In 3/4" material you can produce a fillet on either top or bottom. In 7/8" material a fillet can be made both top and bottom, or a strong fillet on one face. In 1" material a strong fillet can be produced on both faces.
If you want to take your cabinetry moldings one step further, I recommend picking up a 3/8"-radius cove router bit (37-786) and make your own custom cove molding to add underneath the classical bead profile.
Depending on how you rout the edge with the classical bead router bit you can produce several different variations of ogee profiles under the lip of your top that transition beautiful into the face of a chest of drawers, Chest-on-Chest, or china cabinet.
