Can anyone please help me with answers to any of these questions?
Is the insert in a router table there mainly to allow the base plate of the router to come closer to the top face of the table? If so, this will mean that the router base plate has to fit within the perimeter of the insert.
Other than this, the screw hole alignments between the router base plate and the insert need to exist or be made. Apart from the length of the router body, If there are no other limiting factors, what would stop my router fitting any table? TIA
I have a Trend Craftsman Mk2, although I don't use it much any more.
This has an additional plate to mount the router (there are four different ones for different routers). The router is bolted to the plate - bolts into the router base - and then the plate itself is bolted onto the table.
There are then plastic inserts which fit into a hole in the table above the spindle and should be selected to be just bigger than the cutter in use. The idea is to prevent pieces of material going down the hole inappropriately and of course to provide some support near the cutter.
On some tables the plate has a lot of drilled holes and the router is bolted in directly.
On others you have to simply drill the holes in the base plate itself. This tends to be the type where the table consists of melamine on MDF with a drop in metal insert.
Ryobi's basic one, for sale on ebay. It's an aluminium table, so less amenable to resizing of the plate/insert aperture than a MDF table might be. That's why I'm hoping to find out if my Elu MOF 98 router will fit this Ryobi table before I attempt to purchase one.
I've read that these are better quality than the Ryobi table. Though functionally, from the pictures I've seen, there doesn't seem to be a tremendous difference between the two.
I've also read on this NG that you're not very keen on router tables but prefer spindle moulders. I'd prefer one of those too :-) I'd rather deal with spindle moulder cutters than router bits any time, spindle moulder cutter geometry apart. I aim to do some pretty small stuff on my router tables and I get the impression that problems occur for most people when they start trying to do increasingly larger dimension jobs on the router table.
These are useful details. By insert I was originally meaning the plate or multiple of plates and fittings that allowed the router to fix to the table. The more useful sub-components that there are, the better I'll like it, once the major conjunctions have been achieved.
My plan is to make one of those using the minimal -ish router table That I want to buy for the purpose.
That I don't know. THe Elu routers (now DW, Trend of course) fit the type A plate on the Trend table, although I don't see the 98 model listed. If you could work out which DW model replaced it, that would give you your answer.
The main table is cast aluminium and there's a bunch of accessories as well - some included and some you buy.
The extension tables are steel and the whole thing is pretty sturdy. I have mine fastened to a piece of ply with a batten underneath which I clamp in a vice or Workmate.
That's probably true.
In the router table I have mainly run 12.7mm shaft cutters, usually of no more than 30mm diameter and using a DW625 router. This is with an adjuster underneath for the cutter height and hold downs and featherboards
This works pretty well and I've done plenty of lengths of moulding in soft and hardwoods with it as well as general work.
I haven't tried the larger cutters such as panel raising types, but the inserts will allow for it. I suspect that provided you use a router with enough power and adjust speed appropriately as well as feeding carefully it should be OK.
So I wouldn't say tht I am not keen on router tables - this one has done a good job and works well.
However, in my combination machine, there is a spindle moulder built into the main saw table with a changeable spindle. So I can swap out the normal 30mm spindle for a router spindle which takes all the usual collet sizes. In effect, I can then do anything that I previously did on the router table.
Ah, OK, I wondered that.
OK. So what you could potentially do is to go for a router table like mine or the Ryobi and drop it into a table with melamine top that you construct around it.
Alternatively, you could just go for an insert plate and mechanism like the Rout-R-Lift
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build that into a table. There are numerous products like this on the market.
Thanks for all the helpful information. It didn't entirely answer my main query but I learnt a lot from what you wrote.
For practical purposes probably yes. Perhaps for some wooly aesthetic reasons I quite fancy producing the whole table top. This would also allow me to put the initially purchased table back on eBay again. :)
I spent a day or so finding the free plans. After that I pretty much decided on a variation on Norm's version. It looks like a pretty sound basis for development.
I'm happy to see such a range of possibilities. Last week though, after reading up on the subject here and elsewhere I did a Usenet search on the Incra Intellifence and blow me down, if the first few posts I found weren't complaining about the inadequacies and shoddiness of the goods! Is nothing sacred?
The insert does alow the router to come close to the table top, but its primary purpose in a general purpose table is to allow a variety of router to be fitted. Whether the router need to fit within the footprint of the plate will depend a little on the layout of the underside of the table. It is probably safest to assume it does need to fit.
You may want to check that the table does not obstruct access to vital controls.
A good book on routing which has a good section on making all sorts of jigs and router tables is:
The book I have found very good - especially for info on making jigs to help you do all the clever stuff is:-
"Woodworking with the Router: Professional Router Techniques and Jigs Any Woodworker Can Use"
Yes, I thought perhaps so. It does make the table spec quite critical in that respect. Though there's a good chance my router would fit the table in question, It'd be reassuring to confirm before purchase.
That's another consideration. I get the impression that without a hinged top or one of those expensive devices for adjusting from above, getting at the controls is often a bit of a task.
You could always stick it back on ebay if it does not fit. If the table is intended as a general purpose one (rather than specific to the Ryobi range of routers) then I would expect them to have made it flexible in fixing options.
The important one is on/off! The better tabels have a NVR switch fited so that you can control the router with that and have no need to reach its own switch.
Some of the useabilty is influenced by the router itself. e.g. If it can plunge its collet right through its base plate, then that makes it much simpler to change bits with it sticking up above the table.
Some of the tables like the trend that I have (same as the one Andy mentioned) allow for additional "lift" bars to be fitted. These let you adjust the height of the router in the table very simply. Also routers with a decent sized fine height adjuster knob are handy here (like the Freud FT2000E).
You can order the plans via Brimarc in the UK, but I don't think that they carry the videos. However, you can order both from the U.S. Youi need a VCR able to do NTSC of course....
I haven't seen the Incra router table stuff, but I have a couple of their fences and they are pretty good so I am surprised. .andy
You do need some sort of fine height adjustment, otherwise setups are tedious.
The kind of router that we are discussing is pretty heavy and you would find it a trial to adjust just using the depth stop.
There are three ways that I know of:
- Fine adjuster fitted into the router - pretty good
- Plunge bar which raises the router from underneath - not bad but still fiddly to get the height right.
- Wind mechanism - I am sure the best, but you pay for it.
Typically I do test cuts and measure the result with a digital caliper, but then you still want to adjust to get the final 0.1mm tolerance if you are working accurately.
It's kind of macho to work from drawings alone. Come to think of it, usually there's no choice. The video will be fun and helpful though, so I'll get it from the US source. It's definitely going to be one of their more beneficial exports.
Me too, I was relying on these as a touch-stone in a world of mostly dubious options
I might have done if I continued to use the T5 in the table. With the FT2000 the fine height adjuster is plenty good enough for most activities. About the only thing that would still be difficult to do would be to make a cut that needed a gradual plunge. I expect the lift handles would help there.
Screwfix have jusr reduced the price again IIRC. ;-)
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