Building a router table (continued)

Routing the rebate to hold the Dibond plates

At the end of the last post I was about to put the centrepiece of the router table together, so I could fix the router up to it and start routing. Well, that didn't go so well, for a number of reasons. First, I had to rebate the table itself so as to make space for the 8mm Dibond plates I had stuck together (yes, it is Dibond, not Dieboldt). After setting up guides for the router, that went fairly well. It took ages though, as the router was hard to control when cutting 8mm in one go. I got it done eventually, without too many mistakes. After that I had to cut out a round hole in the rebate itself, so as to be able to get thr router up as near to the top of the table as possible (otherwise I would lose 20mm height if I just fixed the router to the bottom of the tabletop itself.

The router is fixed (it is possible to raise the bit up way more)

Once everything was cut, it was time to fit the Dibond plates and make sure they are absolutely flush with the top of the table. This actually worked out better than I thought. A little bit of chisel work around the corners and the plates fitted perfectly. This was about the last thing that worked easily though. I bought the right screws from Liebl in Taufkirchen. These are sinkhead bolts which are coutersunk into the Dibond plates, so the surface of the table is smooth. Countersinking without the right bits is a mess though, especially in Dibond, where you cut up the plastic in the middle of the sandwich too much. After a while I was able to fix the router vertically and securely and was able to the first routing work with the fence I had made. It worked out quite well - give or take for the chipping (which you would have against the grain anyway). I wasn't altogether happy with the overall setup though, especially because it takes ages to get the router into position.

I decided to take another stab at it. The changes are that I bought a new router - a fairly cheap one from Lidl - to sit permanently in the routing table. The Lidl router is solid enough but it doesn't have the features the Bosch has. That doesn't matter though, because it is never going to be used outside the routing table. As well as that, I'm going to put legs on the table. I originally planned on clamping it to the workbench, but that is neither practical, nor is it secure. The clamps get in the way of the sliding fence, and the weight of the router tends to pull the table off square to the workbench as well.

One last thing I got done today was a mortise for the angle slide. I decided to cut the same mortise as I have on the table saw so I can use the same angle slide as I have on it. It has a bit of strange dimension, so rather than adding an aluminium slide (which I couldn't find anyway for the Bosch guide), I just cut straight into the chipboard, like I did for the guide rails for the fence. The chipboard is really compact and heavy, so it will hopefully keep its form. Now I'll give it a rest for a day or too until the new Dibond plate comes as well as the router itself.

One last thing I needed to do was make sure the fence runs parallel. I had originally routed four slots into the board. The aluminium tracks were on the bottom of the fence. The issue was that either not all four tracks were perfectly parallel or not all of the slots. It might only be a millimetre, but it was causing the fence to stick. I was thinking of leaving it but that would mean that every time I had to move the fence I'd be stuck with the problem. Better to get it right for once and for all. I solved it by fixing two more pieces of board to the outside of the table. Luckily, I cut that perfectly square (even though I didn't think I had to). After checking again with the big square, I decided to go for it. The fit is quite tight, but it slides ok-ish. I might sand the outsides of the fence a bit to make the fit better.

Building a router table

Router table with fence. Router insert not done yet

One of the things I wanted to get done quickly was to build a box for my circular saw. There are various box systems that you can buy. Makita has one, Festool has one and Bosch Professional have one (the blue Bosch). The green Bosch (DIY) don't seem to have anything for circular saws. You buy the saw and it comes in a cardboard box. You can't really take it anywhere. Given that the saw also has a guide, various blades and assorted bits and pieces, a box seemed a good idea.

The first thing that I got was 6mm plywood. That is strong enough to easily  hold the saw and any bits and pieces as wells. 6mm is not enough for dowels and screws though, so I decided to go with finger joints. They are strong as hell and in a different league to dowels and screws anyway.

Had to improvise a bit to get the router to cut circles

Plus I wanted to try out a couple of techniques to see which would give me the best joints. In Youtube there are a whole load of videos of americans cutting finger joints with dado blades. Easiest thing in the world - you can build a jig for it in minutes and get straight to making box joints. The only issue is that you are completely at the mercy of your dado blade. Your joint has to be the width of the dado blade. As well as that, dado blades are banned here - at least in the industrial carpentry, but because there is no market for them professionally, there is also no DIY market for them. The next best thing is a table for a router where you can turn the router upside down.

I started off with a chipboard wardrobe door that I found.It was coated in some kind of hard plastic lacque, which means that anything at all would slide across it easily without resistance. I cut it to length on the table saw. The next thing I needed was a fence. This is particularly useful for running long pieces of timber through - e.g. cutting a profile for skirting boards. I decided to let the fence run in four grooves. I put aluminium runners in the outer grooves. Threaded bars in the fence reach down into the profiles. With wing nuts you can tighten the fence down to the profiles so it can't move. I originally throught that that would be enough but there was too much play. I cut two more grooves parallel to the outer ones, towards the middle. On the underside of the fence I stuck pieces of the aluminium profile. They run in the corresponding grooves and keep the whole construction parallel.

A circle cut out of one of the Dieboldplatten with the router

At the moment I am busy trying to figure out how to actually fix the router to the bottom of the table. Obviously, I can't just screw it to the bottom of the chipboard table, because it is 20mm thick. With the router blade just hanging in to the router (which is highly dangerous), that would let me cut at the most about 5mm above the table (25mm total) and that wouldn't be worth the effort. So the objective was to find something as stiff as possible and as thin as possible. The answer is Dieboldplatten. These are sandwiches made of 2mm aluminium, 4mm plastic and then another 2mm aluminium. I stuck two of these together, giving me 10mm total. It is stiff as hell. Tomorrow I'm going to cut down 10mm into the chipboard so to rebate the Dieboldplatte. After that I'll still need to figure out how to safely fix the router to the Dieboldplatte.

Two Dieboldplatten stuck together