| Home made router table |
[Dec. 1st, 2010|11:34 am]
Rob
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I made this cheap and chipper 18"x18" router table via the plans on the wood working tips website. I modified it a bit, making the fence slightly differently and creating a small base for it. The top is 3/4" MDF, with about 4 or 5 coats of "Tung Oil" from home depot (pretty sure it isn't but works just fine for this), followed by 2 or 3 coats of blue label paste wax from Lee Valley. The top turned out great, and is quite slippery.
There are no screws in the assembly, it's held together with titebond III glue (and in a few spots, the crap tacular JB Kwik weld epoxy I was testing out), and 3/8" dowels.
The fence is made from a piece of s4s maple I had kicking around. It's supports are held on with cold cure epoxy. I think I'm going to make a new one at some point, this one is pretty darn good, but suffers from a few annoyances. I don't think it's quite square. I need to really crank down the clamps to keep it from moving around on the table top (the slippery surface is a blessing and a curse!) Adjusting the distance to the bit is pretty fidgety. Despite that, I've already got some great use out of it, using it as a jointer using the lee valley jointer shims, and doing some long dados. I think the next one I make will extend beyond the end of the table, that would be useful for some operations. I think I'll use s4s maple again, or get my friend with a jointer to help me out... A higher fence would also be handy, I think.
Here's a photo of it in jointer mode.
My gripes of the table are that the table is quite thick, so it reduces the max cut of a lot of my bits. Thankfully, it isn't much of an issue, and I bought a nice 2" long freud straight cut bit to solve the problem I was having. I've already scratched it's surface once too, whoopes.
Overall I'm super happy with it, it's a great tool, I think I'll get a lot of use out of it. I think if I make another one of these, I will make it about 24" wide, and perhaps a little narrower. I would also probably add hardwood edges, and put some kind off hard plastic laminate finish on top. |
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