Climb Cut

A climb cut feeds a router, planer, or other rotating cutter in the same direction the cutter is spinning, rather than the conventional direction (against the rotation) that's the safe default. Cutting with the rotation instead of against it produces a cleaner finish on figured or reversing grain that would otherwise tear out under a conventional cut -- the cutting edge shears the fibers in a more favorable direction relative to the grain.

The tradeoff is real: because the cutter is now pulling the tool (or the workpiece) along with its rotation instead of resisting the feed direction, a climb cut can grab and yank the tool forward suddenly and hard if the operator isn't braced for it -- a genuine loss-of-control risk, not a theoretical one. Climb cuts are generally reserved for light, controlled passes specifically to clean up tearout-prone grain, not run as the default cutting direction.