Router Table - Part 3: Bonus Upgrade!

Wheeled Cabinet with storage

My sister and I had some days off at the same time and she volunteered to help me get started on the cabinet for the router table. We began by roughing out the design on some scrap paper. The plan was to have a big drawer at the bottom to store all of my power hand tools and tool cases. The top drawer would be a lot shallower and used for smaller tools and accessories. Most of this stuff was cluttering my workbench and the floor, so I was keen to get them stored away neatly.

We used 18 mm MDF for the sides and drawer fronts and 16 mm MDF for pretty much everything else. I had bought some 12 mm particle board to make my tool wall, so we used that for the base. It didn't need to be strong, it just had to provide some additional rigidity.

We cut everything out using the Scheppach track saw and cut rebates for the base and top bracing using the router table itself.

Some glue and a whole bunch of screws later, I had a cabinet. I added two 70 mm locking swivel castors at the front and two fixed castors at the back. As you can see, I managed to put it to use right away.

Keeping the dust out

The project stayed this way for a few weeks. Once I got my new table saw *gasp* I decided that making some drawers for the cabinet would be a good first project.

The drawers are a basic construction. The sides are attached to the front and back using butt joints, glue and screws. The 12 mm particle board bases were rebated, glued and nailed. I bought some heavy duty full extension slides to make it easy to access items in the back. The 18 mm MDF fronts were then glued and screwed into place with as little clearance as possible to keep dust out. This video by John Heisz really helped with understanding how to install the slides.

Tidying up the switch

Once the drawers were done, all that was needed to make the table functional again was to feed the female end of the switch through the table so that I could connect it to the router. I started by cutting a hole big enough for the connector.

I then chiselled out a ramp to provide enough clearance to feed the cord behind the plastic body of the switch.

The switch was then screwed back onto the router table, hiding the hole and keeping everything looking neat and tidy. The dangling cord is the male end to be connected to mains.

Finishing touches

I made some pulls based on something I saw John John Heisz make, and enclosed underneath the hole in the router table with a 30mm deep box to keep the dust out of the top drawer but provide enough clearance to lower the router full depth through the hold made previously. I used a technique I saw in one of Marius Hornberger's videos to make this box using simple 45 degree glued mitre joints for all edges since it didn't have to be very strong.

How does it perform?

For my current needs, it's good enough. Adjustment of the router height is fiddly as you have to open the top, rest it on something (like your forehead) and fiddle with the Makita's "fine adjustment" ring until you get things right. Fence adjustment generally involves clamping it down then tapping with a hammer to "micro" adjust the positioning.

Future improvements I plan to make include:

1. Painting the cabinet to seal the MDF (which is easily affected by moisture)
2. Dust collection
3. Better adjustment mechanism for the fence
4. Throwing it all away, buy a new router, and make something else that has a router lift :)

In the meantime, the table has been useful for more than just routing. It is my go-to flat surface for glue ups (my main work bench is usually too cluttered) and it is a good height for a table saw outfeed table when cutting large pieces. The castors make it super easy to move around my tiny space and the storage as well has been very useful as I try to adapt my single car garage into a functional workshop.

Router Table - Part 2

A lot has happened in a year. A lot of tools were bought and I finally finished some projects that I had been "working on" for quite some time. In particular the Router Table. Here it is at approximately 70% done:

It's not quite finished but it's usable.

Making the table top

After a failed attempt to use the rest of the salvaged plywood from an old pallet, I decided to just use a manufactured material for the table top - MDF.

MDF is an engineered product and relatively flat which make a a great candidate for providing a reference surface for shaping timber on the router table. It does have a few downsides however:

1. Potential health risks due to fine dust and binding agents (e.g. formaldehyde).
2. Splits easily when using screws.
3. Poor resistance to moisture.

Because of the first issue, it's important to have good dust extraction and to wear a respirator when working with MDF. I bought a basic respirator from Bunnings a while ago and use this whenever making fine dust - especially if it's MDF dust. I'm also working towards having dust collection at the source for most of my tools as this is by far the best way to ensure that you don't breathe in any harmful particles.

After cutting the MDF to the appropriate size, I lined up my router's base plate to mark the holes in the center of the table then drilled and countersunk the holes for the M5 machine screws. I had to buy longer screws in order to accommodate the additional thickness of the 18mm MDF. The router base plate is only about 5mm thick.

I made a simple jig and used my router and a guide bushing for cutting the recess for the 100 mm butt hinges.

I then used the same jig to make a similar recess on the table box itself and then attached the hinges to both pieces using screws.

The router was then secured to the bottom of the table with the M5 machine screws. I hadn't completely accounted for the depth of the router in my design so I had to make a recess in the bottom of the main box to allow the router to drop through. I would need to work around this later in order to keep any dust contained within the main box when using the router table. 

Making the fence

I had always planned on making a split fence in order to be able to joint boards using the router table. The split fence design also makes it easier to ensure that the router bit is as close to the fence as possible at all times. This improves dust collection and makes routing operations safer by providing more support to the work piece.

I didn't make any real plans for the fence and more or less made it up as I went along.

I cut two long pieces for the front and base of the fence using my recently acquired Scheppach CS-55 track saw. This was much faster than the previous approach of using a router to cut materials to size. I also cut out the vertical support pieces to keep the fence square, the 45 degree angled piece that would provide a dust collection port and the two front sliding fence pieces.

The pieces were glued and screwed together.

In order to cut the slots for the sliding front, I setup a temporary fence with the router installed in the table. I then made a wider slot for the bolt heads to sit in.

I had wanted to try making some knobs for a while so this seemed like a good chance to try it. I began by drilling five pilot holes in a piece of MDF. 

I Then used a 16 mm spade bit to bore out the outer holes.

The the whole knob was then cut out using a cheap hole cutting bit in my cordless drill. I made matching cut-outs in a thinner sheet of MDF and chiselled out a recess for the bolts in the thicker piece.

The thinner sheet of MDF was then used to cover the bolt.

The hole assembly was glued together and after a bit of sanding the finished knob looked pretty slick.

Not quite square

After assembling the fence I realised that a combination of poor alignment and bulging from screws in the MDF meant that the fence was not sitting 90 degrees to the table top. To fix this, I decided to plane down the base of the fence until It was as square as possible to the table. For obvious reasons, I had to remove the screws before doing this.

After a bit of fiddling around, I got it pretty much dead on.

For bonus points, I added a mitre slot and a really simple mitre gauge to the table. My plan is to just clamp down the fence for now. At some point I might try to add a slot or track system to make things easier.  

Finishing touches

To finish things off I attached the 4 of the 5 free Ikea style legs to the bottom of the main box with screws and painted the main box with a water based paint. The MDF was sealed using shellac and then waxed to provide a smooth low friction surface. I bought a switch from the local woodworking supply store and attached it to the outside.

Due to the hole in the bottom of the box, dust collection was not perfect. Also, the cord for the router had to be fed through this hole to reach the switch on the side of the box as the switch is actually for a Triton table and isn't really designed to be installed into something with walls as thick as my router table.

In part 3, I'll finish things off. The Ikea legs are temporary. The plan is to make a rolling cabinet with drawers for storing power tools and accessories.

Router Table - Part 1

I did some wood shop in high school and have flirted with the idea of getting back into it, on and off, for many years. Specifically, I've always wanted to make my own furniture. The first time I did some woodworking after school, I collected a couple of hand tools and a secondhand Makita 3601b router. I didn't stick with it that time around, but about 6 months ago I started tinkering with woodworking again.

Playing by the rules

Lack of tools has always been a problem for me - especially since my ambitions often outweigh my budget and my skills. I don't like wasting money on poor quality tools, but I also can't justify going out and stocking up on Festool gadgets either - no matter how sexy they are. So I made the decision that I need to prove to myself that I can be trusted to keep this up and therefore justify any costs. I decided on a few loose rules:

1. Use what I have: this includes the lumber I've been hoarding for some time.
2. Find free stuff (such as a pallet at work that was going to be thrown away).
3. Don't be afraid to spend money on tools, but only buy the things I need as I need them.
4. Make as many of my tools as I can.
5. Buy good quality tools, but not the best.
6. Adapt my processes to what tools I have.
7. Don't be scared of having a compact workshop and working out on the drive way.

These may seem like pretty common sense ideas, but each one addresses the mental barriers that make it difficult for me to stick with (and actually engage in) the things I really enjoy.

In order to satisfy this criteria, I decided to make my own router table. The goal was to make as much of it as possible with my router, since that was the only power tool I owned. After all, the reason I bought a router in the first place was because they are so versatile.

Living life on the edge

The difficulty when starting out is trying to understand how to make accurate cuts without a table saw. I don't want a table saw yet. They are expensive, take up a lot of space and can be very dangerous. While scouring YouTube, I came across this video series by Ron Fox:

Accurate woodworking starts with a straight edge. Ron demonstrates this by using just a straight edge to make some simple jigs. He then uses those jigs and the straight edges to make more complex jigs and so on. The problem was, I didn't own a straight edge. I had some timber, but it was sourced long ago and warped by the Australian heat. I had no way to really test if it was straight. I also didn't really trust any of the "dressed" timber from Bunnings - at least not for long cuts.

I did some research and decided that the 50" ProGrip fence from Carbatec was going to be my best option. It had adequate length to allow me to work with fairly large sized pieces (i.e. cross cut on a full 2400 x 1200 sheet) but I could still make smaller straight edges if I needed. It also clamped securely to the timber being cut which makes it easy to pass the router all the way along the edge without any clamps getting in the way. I also grabbed some 16mm MDF and used the ProGrip fence to make a few additional straight edges.

Lining up the MDF straight edge to trim some ply to size

Using a template bit with one of the MDF straight edges

The other tip I got from the Ron Fox videos was double sided tape. You can use it to hold the straight edge guides in place to trim your work piece straight. Sometimes clamps will get in the way - especially on smaller cuts. I bought my double sided tape from the painting section of Bunnings. I also bought a basic router bit set because all I owned was a cheap straight bit. I also owned a Carbatec ogee bit and a Carbatec planing bit that I had managed to buy on sale.

The Plan

Sketchup router table design

A few years ago when binge-watching The Wood Whisperer (I still do!) I was introduced to the idea of using Sketchup to design wooden furniture. Sketchup used to be a Google product but it's now owned by Trimble Navigation. The basic version is still free and it is really easy to use. There are heaps of tutorials out there on how to use Sketchup to design woodworking projects so I won't go into much detail here. The workflow I have chosen, involves starting with the basic shapes and then constructing all of the joints, exactly as you plan to make them. You can then lay out all of the components and add dimensions so you can create a cut list.

Cut away showing the rebate joints in the main box

As this project has been a bit of a learning exercise, some aspects are over-engineered. I haven't stuck 100% to the plan as I've progressed in the project, but the general idea has remained the same. The sizing for the main box was selected based on some (warped) pine boards I already owned. The main table top was a big question mark, as it is really critical that it is quite flat.

Bill of materials

The design of the project was heavily influenced by the following materials that I already owned:

• 2 longish DAR pine boards 70 x 19 mm
• 2 longish DAR pine boards 190 x 19 mm
• Some 18mm ply from a pallet that my mate Kev and I took apart after salvaging it from the work rubbish pile
• 5 Ikea style table legs (another freebie from the rubbish pile at work)

Deciding on what to use for the table top was probably one of the single biggest hold ups when designing this project as I was really trying to not spent a huge amount of money on materials. I got some quotes for a thick piece of melamine coated MDF and they were way more than I was willing to spend. I decided to put the decision off until later.

Routing the main joints

The DAR pine I had was pretty warped and twisted, but I didn't want to plane it by hand and I don't have any power tools to flatten and joint timber (yet), so I decided to see how I'd go clamping everything as flat as possible when making the joints and then clamping heavily during the glue up.

I started by choosing the straightest edge and flattest faces for each piece and marked them like we used to do in school. I then used my try square, referencing off the face side and edge, to mark the lengths of each piece. I used my router, with the flush trim bit and a straight edge to cut each piece to length. Stacking 2 at a time allowed me to ensure that opposite members were the same length.

Next I cut the half lap joints for the top support frame and the rebate joints for the side walls using my router. For the half lap joints I used my Carbatec planing bit and offset the straight edge to ensure I could run the router along it and stay withing the cutting line. I used a support block on the opposite side to make sure the base of the router was supported during each pass.

Straight edge and support block for making the
half lap joint

Carbatec planing bit

Finished half lap joint

Finished pieces for the top support frame

The rebates on the side walls were cut using a straight edge and a flush trim bit.

Cutting the base

Next I needed to cut the bottom of the box to size. I decided to use the pallet plywood as it was free and the base would not be seen once the whole thing is assembled. I also decided to leave it as a solid piece for now, which was different to my Sketchup design. I would eventually need a small hole to allow the router to fit through, but I had not finished deciding how I was going to handle dust collection yet.

I used the straight edge and flush trim bit to roughly cut down the large piece of ply and then squared everything up and did the final cuts with less material to remove. I was getting a fair bit of tear out so I used a piece of scrap to secure the fibers at the end of the cuts. Squaring the sides was done as carefully as possible with my try square and a large ruler.

Using one of the top rails to ensure the correct width

Using a piece of scrap to prevent tear out at the end of the cut

Cutting to size with a flush trim bit

Top and bottom pieces cut to size and ready for assembly

The Glue Up

Test fitting the pieces was pretty problematic due to the warped and twisted pine. I used a bit of blue masking tape to hold things together and added a few clamps here and there. I became increasingly unsure if I owned enough clamps. My frugal side didn't want to admit that I didn't.

Dry run assembly with tape and clamps

Test fitting the top

I started by gluing the top framing pieces as a sub-assembly as this was an easy problem to tackle.

Assembling the top support pieces

I put off gluing the main box for a while. In the end I decided I really didn't have enough clamps and bought 3 long sash clamps, and 4 deep throat F-Clamps from Bunnings. I already owned some long quick release clamps and various small F-Clamps. It was the sash clamps that were the real saviour. They sit stable on the ground and have a large amount of clamping force. They easily pushed the warped sides of the box into shape.

For the glue, I used cheap PVA I bought at Bunnings.

Glued and clamped

Finally, I made sure nothing would move with a large number of 40 mm 6-gauge wood screws.

In part 2, I'll give an overview of finishing the table top, fitting my router and making a sliding fence.