Cutting Pocket Holes on a Router Table
Not too long ago, I went down to the tool store on a wishing trip. I saw a pocket cutter, which I really don’t need for the five or six screw pockets that I cut in a year. But something pushed my Rube Goldberg button, and I rushed back to the shop to build a complicated pocket-cutting contraption that used an old router suspended from a shaft like a pendulum. Well, after I cut pockets in all my scrap lumber, I began to wonder “Now what do I do with the machine put it on a shelf to collect dust?”
About this time, the Goldberg fever left me, and I remembered something my dad told me: “Maybe you don’t need another machine. Just figure out how to do the job with something you already have.” So after some thought, I came up with a markedly simpler method using a ramp and my router table. I simply position the work and the bit depth where I want the pocket to start. Then, keeping my hands well back from where the bit is, I plunge the piece onto the table and push it up the ramp until the bit quits cutting.
Vernon Todd, Springfield, Mo.
Fine Woodworking Magazine, April 1994 No. 105
Fine Woodworking Recommended Products
Woodriver Circle Cutting Jig
Incra Miter 1000HD
Double Sided Tape
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