Good early morning Listers, Today I finally cut the top of my router station and installed the insert I purchased from HouseOfTools.com, a 10 by 12 inch phenolic panel.
Because I have a half inch template cutting bit I cut a piece of half inch scrap plywood two inches narrower and two inches shorter than the insert to allow for half an inch shoulder for the thinner part of the insert plate and half an inch for the template bit all around. This is a straight bit with a bearing at the shaft end. To hold the router in the correct position before plunging to the depth where the bearing could follow the outside perimeter of the plywood scrap I cut a narrow piece of scrap and tacked it into place on top of my template the distance from the edge of the router base to the nearest point of the cutter from the edge of the template. I then located the template using double sided tape stuck on it's bottom and very gently setting it near the intended location then very gently tapped it left and right and back and forth until I got it centered left-to-right on the table and the distance I wanted it from the mitre track. When satisfied I pressed it firmly down then plunged the router full depth so the bearing would contact the template and follow it around counter clockwise to form the first pass. It is about an inch which is a pretty deep cut but this monster triton router didn't seem to mind one bit! It wasn't deep enough to cut full way through the top which is a half inch MDF glued to three quarters MDF and a thin layer of Arborite. I next took off the template and clamped a strip of quarter inch scrap along the front edge of the table spaced to again keep the router located in the slot so I could plunge it the rest of the way through the material again contacting the bearing but this time with the inside of the square island which is exactly the same as the template used to create it. Another circuit counter clockwise and the satisfying clunk of the centre of my table top falling to the floor of the compartment below. I then mounted a rabbeting bit, recently acquired, this one is a hefty chunk of iron mongery with carbide and a series of differing sized bearings to be fitted on the end which determine the width of the rabbet. This is one cool tool but the radius is pretty big so I had to work a lot with chisels in the corners to square them up once I cut the shoulders. This insert comes with set screws in the corners and four little round magnets. This gave me the opportunity to get out that set of centre punches I bought around Christmas from Lee Valley, select the one which just fits through the corner screw hole and mark each location then with a small forstner bit I drilled out the hole just deep enough to accept the little round magnet. Sadly my set of forstner bits didn't have an exact match size but the inside of MDF is fairly soft so I was able to expand the hole with a twist drill in my hand enough to start the magnet into the hole and each tapped down nicely using the head of a screw and a hammer for persuasion. Next, fit the insert in the place of the router base. Again I used double sided tape and my rotomatic ruler to help centre the plastic base plate of the router on the under side of the insert. There were a number of indicators a sighted person could use to locate various holes and there is a series of tactile rings on the under side which I was able to count with finger nails and use to assist with locating the base plate pretty accurately before sticking it well down with the tape. Man that stuff is marvelous! Hadn't used it before and don't now know how I got along without it. Although I used my punches again I didn't find them so useful here, too busy on the under side of that insert so couldn't really feel any marks and that stuff is hard like heck, might be I didn't really mark it enough. On the drill press then I used a bit the size of the baseplate holes to drill through the insert for the screws to hold it onto the router. I don't seem to have a countersink so I used an oversized drill which is very old and has been well abused to more or less burn my way into a counter sink. The screws which came with the router are very short, I suppose I could have tried to find similar longer ones from my local hardware store but not today. Anyway, they all lined up so I was able to secure the insert to the under side of the router and suspend the lot in the table top. One cool thing I hadn't thought of until fooling about this evening is that I can use my tennoning jig in the miter slot of this table. Don't know just now why I might want or need to do this, another way of accurately milling the pin for short sliding dovetails comes to mind and of course some tenon cuts I suppose. The fence is done, I included a mitre track in it's face so I can easily fit things like hold-downs and feather boards and stop blocks and I hope to construct a sled to run along the fence for holding vertical pieces and the like. I inserted 'T' tracks in the table top with 'T' nuts tightened with knobs through the fence base which allow fairly easy adjustment and when tightened up hold wonderfully. I used those toggle type clamps, the cam over centre sort with bolts running through slots in the rear component of the fence turned into coarsely externally threaded sleeves with finer internal threads inserted into the back of the lower fence members so I can slide them to adjust the opening in the fence where the router bit is exposed. You lift the lever and slide the fence to the desired position then snap it down and the sliding portion stays put. There is a port for dust extraction on the fence and another in the cabinet cavity where the router hangs and I think I will add a length of hose into the network from the existing port on the base of the Triton router, it is said to be efficient but I don't know if I will be able to get enough velocity of air across all three of these ports for good efficiency. I had wanted to include an adjustable offset out feed fence but decided that was too much engineering to have a two dimensional moving fence and didn't want to add gaps to have things hang up in. Needless to say the real issue is that I didn't come up with good enough conceptional engineering but may have a go at designing another fence and quite possibly another entire top with different features in the future. Now I need to finish the dust extraction system, another modification not part of the New Yankee Workshop plan or rather a variation on it. Then a little tuning and paint. I would like to come up with a simple efficient retractible wheels system for raising the cabinet for moving it then retracting for stability without hiring a welder but that will likely have to wait for the second edition. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
