Do I need a router table??

[bridger]

if you turn your router upside down you'll see that the surface that touches the wood is removeable. this is called the sub-base. what you're gonna do is unscrew the sub-base and replace it with another one a little thicker and a good 6 or 8 inches longer and wider. (make it a couple of inches larger than the overall footprint of the tool)

this plate in turn will be let into the surface of the router table so that the "top" of it (what was the bottom before you turned it upside down) is flush with the top of the router table.

now to change bits, make fiddly adjustments, etc you lift the router and plate right out of the table.

[Prometheus]

No, but if you get a plunge router, you can change bits when it is still in the table by unlocking the plunge lock. Just make sure you're careful with the router- with the space you've described, it's an awful tight squeeze to keep control of the board.

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[Randy]

[Greg]

I mounted my old Crapsman in a wing of my table saw. I can use the table saw fence and it is one less thing taking up real estate.

[Hank Gillette]

How did you make a hole in your table saw wing?

[Mike Marlow]

Hey Hank - I did the same thing with a DeWalt 618 and my extensions are built out of cherry banding with MDF as the surface, so I just routed the channel for my insert to sit in and cut out the waste. The MDF in my table will soon give way to melamine though. Not because it's giving me any problems, I've just decided that I hate MDF.

[mac davis]

Sam.... absolute no-no, but I'm going to respond to your question before reading what others have said.. (busy morning) IMHO, you know when you need a router table... you'll be working on a project eventually that you really don't feel good about free hand or clamped to a jig, and decide to build a table..

Though I was never as space-inhibited as you, the area I worked in when I first needed a router table was very small... I ended up putting a hole in the back of my work bench with router clamps under it, and an oak 1/4 and a couple of deep throat clamps as the fence.. it worked until I could advance to the next step and was free, using what I had on hand..YMMV

[Greg]

The table saw wings are heavy sheet metal with a depression in them. I cut some laminate to fill the depression and punched the hole with a chassis punch. The

3 mounting screws are countersunk into the laminate

[Prometheus]

They sell router table extension wings for a lot of saws as well, IIRC.

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