To work as a woodworker, I think it would be too small, but as a woodworking enthusiast, I have long wanted a router table to make my work easier and increase the capacity of my small woodworking workshop.
Check out all my articles on how to make a > router table < or homemade spindle moulder.
Attaching the portable router to a table is not very difficult. We remove the plastic base cover and use it as a template to make the holes in the board. We find some long screws with the same diameter as those used by the cover we just removed, cut them to the needed length, and countersink the heads of the screws on the top of the board. Then, we just need to make a hole in the center for the bit to pass through and screw the router to the board (be careful with the screws, the first ones I used were too soft and broke when tightening, leaving them stuck in the router base). The problem is adjusting the height of the router, so before anything else, I wanted to have a lift system ready. Next would be to make the fence to serve as a guide, but that will also be another post.
At first, I was going to mount the router on a 1cm thick board like the one I used for the table saw, but since I wanted to make a recess for some adjustable inserts for the bits and also had to countersink the holes for the screw heads, only a few millimeters of board would be left between the screw heads and the router base, and the board would probably break under the screw heads. I ended up using 16mm plywood that I bought pre-cut (I didn’t want to pay for a whole board which was very expensive and found it pre-cut to a size that fits well with my table). To make the table even, I had to remove the white board from the table saw area and put another 16mm plywood board in its place.
The recess for the inserts was made by hand. It seems complicated to do if you don’t have practice, but by cutting the entire contour with a cutter first and slowly getting closer to the cut, we will see how the wood chips away, avoiding going too far. Then some chisel and sandpaper adjustments to fit the insert, and it’s done.
Those of you who have mounted a router of this type under the table will know that another problem with a homemade router table is that the collet does not reach the table height. And if the bit to be used does not have a long enough shank, we might find that we cannot bring it to the desired height. After some tests, it turns out that some of my bits are very tight, so I’m going to fit a collet extender which will also make bit changes easier. I’ll show you once I receive it.