Router table set up

[davestanton]

Hi everyone. I am building a router table into my outfeed table. It its off to the side and will have the fence attached to the rip fence. My question is where to put the insert plate in relation to the length of the mitre slot. Centre or allowing for a fullsize kitchen cabinet door to be guided by the mitre guide?

[tim0625]

Build the router fence to straddle the TS fence with DC built into it. My kitchen cabinet doors are just short of 30" long/tall. If they are a common length and if kitchen cabinets are your main thought, I'd say, locate your router bit 20" away from the LH edge (as we view the photo). That way, you'll feed into the bit - right to left, and when the cabinet door exits the router bit, you still have 2/3 of the door resting on the table. I'd probably use the same 2/3 ratio locating the bit from "nearest edge"- in the photo, I'm calling the "nearest edge" as edge closest to us. My cabinet door is 17.75" wide (basically 18") so locate the router bit 12" away from the nearest edge and locate the miter slot in the middle - 6" from the nearest edge. With the router bit located there, you'll stand on the nearest edge and feed the wood right to left; so with the bit 12" away, you're still close enough to comfortably reach for small projects but still supported for the larger stuff. For the router fence, just build it a little longer than the TS fence. If you're planning for cabinet doors, maybe use the same 2/3 rule: make the router fence long enough that it will extend 12" past wherever you've located the router bit? That gives you same 2/3 of the door length against the router fence as you begin to feed into to the bit. If you adopt the bit being 20" away from the LH edge and the 2/3 rule of the door being supported, then your router fence would extend out to 32" away from the LH edge. Clear as mud??

[dwacker]

For doors the miter is only used for cope cuts. Size your table to fit your sled.

[davestanton]

here is the actual fence I will go with 5 inches from the front edge for the mitre track and then 1 inch from the track to the insert. The fence will be screwed to the polyethylene side of the table saw rip fence. I will block off the dust port and create a new one to the left hand end of the router fence as that is where the cutters will be forcing the waste. Just a matter of lift the vac line off the table saw guard and onto the new router fence port. Of all the router fences I have seen, this one looks the goods to me. I will not use their tsquare styled support or tbolt clamp. I will instead use the fence clamp on my rip fence and a magswitch at the other end, fixed to the cast iron table saw top......extremely stable!!

[dwacker]

Dave,

Before you get started installing the plate. Make sue the hole is large enough for panel raising bits if you plan on making raised panel doors on this table.

Don

[davestanton]

Thanks Don. I will check at work this morning.

[davestanton]

I may set a layer of mdf over the table and stick it down for super large width cutters if the need arises.

[davestanton]

This is my layout. Probably set it into the top on the weekend.

[davestanton]

All done. Here are a couple of pics. I am close to finalising the design of the fence support so I don't have to screw into my table saw fence. I am pretty happy as you could well imagine.

[dwacker]

That looks real nice Dave!

[davestanton]

Thanks Don. Here is something that I did unintentionally. The mitre slot runs 2 mm away from the fence from right to left. At first I was annoyed but then when I thought about it I relaxed as the mitre guide is taking a piece of timber past a given point, not necessarily a parallel situation. This way, I can shoulder a tenon using the fence as a reference guide at the entry of the cut and as long as I keep the stock fixed to the mitre guide, the cut will be the same length. Round about way of saying it I guess. Any way, it would have been bad if the 2mm was reducing from right to left.