Router table finished!

I have been working on a router table based on the design of the one on Pat Warner’s Website.  I liked the theory, so I figured I’d give it a shot.  I had all of the joinery cut and ready to go last weekend, so I glued-up the frame last week.  I had sliced off an oversized hunk of MDF for the top from a 28 x 96 piece that was up at my parents’ place from a previous project, and that was sitting in the basement stairwell.  Everything was pretty much waiting for me to have the time to get the top on and drill the mounting holes.  I finally did that today.  I used Mr. Warner’s technique of tapping the wood to hold machine screws in order to fasten the top to the base.  This worked quite well.  I also drilled holes to fasten the fixed router base to the underside of the table.  Other than having a bit of trial-and-error on the countersinks for the short screws into the router base, it all went together easily.  I haven’t had the time to build the awesome fence on that website yet, but that’s coming.  In the interim, I used a piece of the MDF that I sliced from the top when I cut it down to 24 x 24, fastened a small walnut cleat to the back to help straighten it and keep it that way, and cut a notch to fit over the router bit area.  I ran a few test pieces through with a 3/8″ beading bit that I bought today, and it works well.  Having never used a router table before, this was pretty cool.  It is far easier to use for routing molding stock and the like.  I’m excited now, and wish I had built this a long time ago. 

My other project progressed today, too.  Unfortunately, I went to shoot pictures of it and the router table, and discovered that my camera battery was pretty much flat.  I put it on the charger and will get some pictures later this weekend or this coming week.  In the process of working on other things, I mounted a 1/8″ blade in the bandsaw.  I’ve never used this particular blade before.  It took a while to get it aligned and ready to run–getting it to balance in the middle of the wheels was a bit of a feat.  After that was ready, I made my first small trammel arm to mark out a radius for a specific part that I needed to cut on a piece of MDF.  Then I fired-up the new blade and made the cut.  Wow.  I missed my bandsaw.  That thing is awesome.  I cleaned-up the radius a bit with a rasp, and brought it upstairs to test.  This will be a template for the wood part that I need to cut–this will make it easier to clean-up the cut line using the router table!!!  🙂 

Now I’m pretty tired.  This weekend is going to be busy, and I don’t expect to have a whole lot more shop time.  I’m glad that the router table is ready, though.  I think that is going to save me a bunch of time on some projects. 

jonathan