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.