And the best part is that most of the materials were free! The only part of
this setup that I paid for is the plastic for the insert, and the router
itself. The top is two old cabinet doors with the paint removed, and
laminated together, then covered with scrounged laminate. It's sitting on a
base that used to be a cash register stand. I'm planning on building a
self-aligning fence, and that'll be made from all scrounged materials, also.

Now, if someone would just tell me how to post pics on the binaries
group, I'll post some as soon as the fence is done. The reason I think my
table might be of interest is that I took a different approach with the
insert- instead of using the entire sheet of plastic (clear acrylic, I
think- I bought it years ago), I took the handles off of the fixed base of
my router (bosh fixed/plunge set), and made the insert and opening just
large enough to pass the router, with a 1/2" lip to support it flush. This
gave me enough plastic left over to build in
zero clearance inserts at no extra cost that automatically fit flush with
the insert.

It was also a bit of a challenge to figure out how to route a matching
opening for an irregularly shaped insert, since I only had flush trim bits
to work with.
I ended up cutting a hole in a piece of scrap 3/4 ply about 1/4" bigger
than the insert, then greasing the insert, taping it in place, and filling
the gap with Durhams' rock hard water putty. When this had cured, I had an
almost perfect match, that was easily adjusted to by slightly scraping the
dried water putty (I wisely tried it out on some scrap stock before cutting
my table). I used this to make
a 3/4" pattern to cut the actual table (I know, I went through a bunch of
scrap, but it was all trash to begin with, so I don't feel guilty .

Anyhow, I'm happy, cause now I have a better router table, with a
better router than the one I've been using for the past year or so, and at
very little cost. Using scrap is a big ol' game to me, and whenever I get
something good out of a bunch of scrap stock, I feel like I've won the game
that day

Steve

"Steve Kreitler" wrote in message ...
And the best part is that most of the materials were free! The only part of
this setup that I paid for is the plastic for the insert, and the router
itself. The top is two old cabinet doors with the paint removed, and
laminated together, then covered with scrounged laminate. It's sitting on a
base that used to be a cash register stand. I'm planning on building a
self-aligning fence, and that'll be made from all scrounged materials, also.

Now, if someone would just tell me how to post pics on the binaries
group, I'll post some as soon as the fence is done. The reason I think my
table might be of interest is that I took a different approach with the
insert- instead of using the entire sheet of plastic (clear acrylic, I
think- I bought it years ago), I took the handles off of the fixed base of
my router (bosh fixed/plunge set), and made the insert and opening just
large enough to pass the router, with a 1/2" lip to support it flush. This
gave me enough plastic left over to build in
zero clearance inserts at no extra cost that automatically fit flush with
the insert.

It was also a bit of a challenge to figure out how to route a matching
opening for an irregularly shaped insert, since I only had flush trim bits
to work with.
I ended up cutting a hole in a piece of scrap 3/4 ply about 1/4" bigger
than the insert, then greasing the insert, taping it in place, and filling
the gap with Durhams' rock hard water putty. When this had cured, I had an
almost perfect match, that was easily adjusted to by slightly scraping the
dried water putty (I wisely tried it out on some scrap stock before cutting
my table). I used this to make
a 3/4" pattern to cut the actual table (I know, I went through a bunch of
scrap, but it was all trash to begin with, so I don't feel guilty .

Anyhow, I'm happy, cause now I have a better router table, with a
better router than the one I've been using for the past year or so, and at
very little cost. Using scrap is a big ol' game to me, and whenever I get
something good out of a bunch of scrap stock, I feel like I've won the game
that day

Steve


Wow, what a kick ass idea. Post a picture of it when you can. Doesn't
it give you a sense of satisfaction to use scrap wood for something
useful? That's one reason I got a kick ass lathe. Now every scrap can
be transformed into a ass kicking little project.

(jim wilson) wrote in message
SNIP
Wow, what a kick ass idea. Post a picture of it when you can. Doesn't
it give you a sense of satisfaction to use scrap wood for something
useful? That's one reason I got a kick ass lathe. Now every scrap can
be transformed into a ass kicking little project.

Well hell Jim, between this and your biscuit cutter post you're really
kicking some ass today.

Dave Hall

You didn't even mention his kick ass post about making kick ass dovetail
joints with the kick ass Leigh jig.

--

There are no stupid questions.
There are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.


"David Hall" wrote in message
om...
(jim wilson) wrote in message
SNIP
Wow, what a kick ass idea. Post a picture of it when you can. Doesn't
it give you a sense of satisfaction to use scrap wood for something
useful? That's one reason I got a kick ass lathe. Now every scrap can
be transformed into a ass kicking little project.

Well hell Jim, between this and your biscuit cutter post you're really
kicking some ass today.

Dave Hall

Careful now, he's going to wanna kick all our asses.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 9/08/03

"Mike in Mystic" wrote in message
You didn't even mention his kick ass post about making kick ass dovetail
joints with the kick ass Leigh jig.

--

There are no stupid questions.
There are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.


"David Hall" wrote in message

(jim wilson) wrote in message
SNIP
Wow, what a kick ass idea. Post a picture of it when you can. Doesn't
it give you a sense of satisfaction to use scrap wood for something
useful? That's one reason I got a kick ass lathe. Now every scrap can
be transformed into a ass kicking little project.

Well hell Jim, between this and your biscuit cutter post you're really
kicking some ass today.

Dave Hall