Mr.Tom Stoffel, the President of Betterly Tools, sent me a Betterly Coving router for a test drive and this subsequent review. In their anxiousness to be first, many manufacturers bring products to market these days “half baked”. Not so with Betterly. This tool is engineered very well, manufactured beautifully and battle-proven.  

In my excitement to get started, I overlooked the enclosed rabbeting bit with insert cutters and cut it with our usual 7/8” bearing cutter in a small Porter Cable router. I’m sure the bit and the adjustable fence on the enclosed Stacc Vacc router base would have done a better job.



Here are the pieces for the cove.

I sold my old Betterly Coving Router with my shop back in ’01. I used to cut the excess material off the cove shoe at a 45*, so the old core box bit and I would have less work to do. I did the same thing here, but I forgot to stop the cut at the intersection of the adjacent shoe, leaving a nice 45* hole in my corner. Cutting the excess may no longer be necessary with the air-glide base and the new bit.

I made the piece and dry fitted.

I’m using Dani Clamps to hold the shoe to the splash while the glue sets up. If you wax the aluminum rail, the squeeze-out doesn’t stick.

The shoe/splash is glued and Dani Clamped into the rabbet.

Routing the cove in the backsplash.

This is probably the easiest way to route the vertical cove corner, at least on a top small enough to stand on end. Lay a shim on the bench the thickness of the splash with a 90* fence attached. If the piece is too big to stand, make a fence jig, clamp it into the corner, lift the router without tipping and rout the cove.

This is the floor after cutting the cove. Having owned and operated the old Coving router model, I can tell you this is amazing. That thing would have put static-filled chips all over the operator and floor. It is remarkable to see the evolution of a great tool.

Grind a spade bit to round with sharp square edges; it makes a great corner/cove scraper. You’ll be amazed at how much sanding this saves. Those scuffs on the deck were from my not having initially adjusted the router depth setting properly. Fortunately, they were shallow and sanded right out.

This is the finished top with perfect coved splashes.

Page 22 of the Betterly catalog shows how to use the Bettterly Coving system. The method shown is fast, but has the potential to cause ugly non-removable elongated glue lines because the cove piece is seamed parallel with the curved cut of the cove. The stacked-shoe-in-rabbet method shown here and as the third alternate on page 22 is the only way to get both seams perpendicular to the cove cut. This is essential for certain fussy colors and the only method I recommend. I’ve never seen Dani Homrich, owner of Dani Designs, do a cove any other way either.

Betterly recommends using the Betterly Coving Sander, but I cannot. A small air-powered oscillating sander is simply no match for a Festool 150 on Rotex mode when it comes to sanding coves quickly. The Festool has a vacuum the Betterly does not and you’ve got to see what you’re doing.

The Betterly Coving Router model #210-A is bare–bones, no vac and no air-glide base. Hopefully you can spare an extra guy to hold a vac near the cutter or the operator is going to take a chip shower, guaranteed. I’m talking snowman here and someone’s got to pay to clean up that mess. The #210-D has the vac but no air-glide base so you’re at least back to one operator and a can of silicone for the deck and bottom of the router base. Someone’s got to pay to clean the silicone off the deck too. The #AG210-A has the air-glide base and no vac and the #AG210-D has it all. That’s the model I tested and fell in love with. Do you think Tom will want me to send it and the S/V back?

You can push this behemoth with a pinkie finger when you turn on the air-glide switch. You can push the cover to cut, but I prefer to pull it. The air-glide system will pay for itself in productivity gains by significantly reducing operator fatigue and I’m speaking from experience.

There are other methods to make cove in solid surface. The QuickCove system works, but there is no way to make the coved corner you’ve seen here with that system. A mitered coved corner with no vertical cove is the best you can do. Color selections are limited to the major solid surface manufacturers and color/particulate match may be a problem.

You can cut cove shoe mould on a router table or shaper with a core-box bit, but this requires some practice and talent to get everything set up and to fit as precisely as required. Color/particulate match and coved corners are not a problem with this system.

The Betterly system can be initially relatively expensive as compared to the two alternatives, but after a bit of practice, you’ll be making perfect coves without tying up the most valuable employees in your shop, it’s that simple. Again, color/particulate match and coved corners are not a problem with this system. A router table and/or a shaper consume much more valuable shop space than the Betterly’s square-foot footprint. Coving curves is particularly easy with the Betterly.

Betterly tools aren’t cheap, but if you spend the money, it’s nice to know you’ve bought the best available anywhere at any price.

Special thanks go to Dani Homrich for the shop space for this test.


About the Author:  Joseph Corlett has over fourteen years experience in the solid surface industry and has written for Surface Fabrication magazine, Slippery Rock Gazette and Old House Journal. You can contact Corlett at loosedeckcannon@comcast.net