I have been talking about the upgrades at my shop for a while now. The miter bench. The rolling cart that holds the drill press. The rearranging to get more usable space.
There’s something else I had to add to the shop – a far more capable router table. Years ago, I had built a router table into my table saw’s top, and it was good. For a while. Until I first had to rout a nice molding profile and then rip it off a wider piece… that just became a real mess. I also desperately needed to get a far more precise setup. I mean, I have been using a cobbled-together router fence that I wasn’t 100% sure was square to the table…
That’s when David Venditto of Infinity Cutting Tools stepped in to fix my issue. He had already sent me home with a new Triton router and router plate, and this past week, he finished me off with a router table, fence and stand.
The fence is a sweet Jessem Mast-R-Fence 2. This baby comes complete with dust collection, a built-in scale, sliding fence faces to let you control the opening for the router bit and secure clamping to ensure it holds a measurement. Everything you would want a router fence to do.
The stand was sort of like an erector set.. lots of steel legs and plenty of bolts. And bolts. And, some more bolts. I had no idea how many bolts it would take to assemble the stand, but I did have my set of wrenches and sockets, so that helped.
Once I had it put together, I had to top the stand with a VERY cool top. David gave me one of his brand new black microdot router tables. Turns out, they are milled right near my house. The edges are wrapped with a tough edging and a miter channel that accepts both mini and miter T-track accessories. The best feature? The top is a black microdot laminate that is very hard, and reduces the friction on the wood that you push over the table. I’ve played with it a little bit this weekend, and boy, has it been fun!
Once I got it all assembled, I had to put it into its place of honor in the shop, next to the drill press. I’m looking forward to putting this router table through its paces, and eventually doing a shop 2.0 tour for you folks to enjoy.
Wow, that’s great Tom.
Your shop has had an amazing transformation this past year or so.
Your sponsors must know a good bet when they see one.
I can’t wait to see all the cool projects you’ll be knocking out.
I recently did the same project except, I had to pay for mine and it is a different brand of table. 🙂
Instead of the metal legs, I built an eight drawer cabinet that holds all of my routers, bits and various equipment for using them, to mount the top on. It makes it vary convenient when the need for a router presents it’s self. I also put mine on wheels as I have a small shop and need to move the router table to use it. 🙂
Rog
I’m going to be doing what you had – I’m going to move my router into my extension on my table saw, more due to space issues as the current table is taking up room in the shop. Although if I could have your new one, that would be welcomed in my shop.
Just got inspired to make a router table myself. Would you mind if I imitate to this version?