I made the horizontal router table you described in FWW#147 in 2001 and have been using it since to cut tenons. It’s fast, accurate, and convenient. Now that I’m using it more than ever I’ve been thinking about a couple of features. Adjustment is a little fussy and not as accurate as it used to be. And cuttings collection, using my shop vac and a garbage can cyclone, isn’t very effective. Thinking the small opening around the bit might be constraining air flow, I’ve added an adjustable blast gate on the front side opposite the collection port, to bleed in various amounts of air, with only slight improvement. Have you experienced either of these issues and thought about or modified the table in the last seven years?
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Replies
The great thing about publishing articles like the one on the router table is to see how the ideas presented evolve into much better concepts. I have not changed my table much. In fact I never put the fine adjustment feature on mine, that was John White's idea during the writing of the article. I frankly think partially tightening the locking knob on the sector and tapping the swing arm with a mallet is a better adjustment method--at least for me. But that is an adjustment method I am comfortable with. The big advantage of our shop built tables is that the bit fits through a hole in the swing arm that is the exact diameter of the cutting tool. Likewise the hole through the table is no bigger that the longest extension of the bit. This "zero clearance" feature of a home built table is what makes it work so well, cutting tenons with almost no breakout. If you need more air flow for the vacuum I would drill some holes in the side of the cabinet (and the swing arm) that brought air in under the table and across the bottom of the bit. This would improve airflow which would improve swarf removal and the life of the vacuum.
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Ernie Conover
Thanks, Ernie. I don't think I have the skill to make fine adjustments by tapping with a mallet, on the router table or on a hand plane, so looks like my table is about to evolve. Something along the lines of a fine-thread bolt thru an insert bearing on a metal plate? With the shop vac hooked to it my table doesn't throw off any shavings but it fills up with them, packed tight. Would that be because I missed the part in the article about plunging the bit thru the swing arm for zero clearance and drilled a one inch hole instead?
Mike Anderson
I would hazard a guess that the large opening contributes to swarf being in the wrong place. After swinging the bit through the table I chiseled a bit of relief on the bottom side of the table. I have no problems with swarf impacting anywhere and 99% ends up in my Sears Shop Vacuum. ERC
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