Now that I have “fixed” the side fence of my router table, I can already route on the end of the wood strips without fear that the router bit will move the strip towards the inside of the fence causing a crooked routing. It is interesting to be able to route in the head of the wood strips, for example to route tenons. But even so, it is not easy to keep the wood strip in the correct position with respect to the router table fence, so I needed to make this simple tenoning jig to route easily at 90º. Very useful for example, as I said before, to cut tenons in the end of the wood strips. Another option is to route tenons with the hand plunge router and a curious woodworking jig.
So let’s see how I made this simple woodworking jig to route in the head of the wood strips.
The tenoning jig is nothing more than a runner that is held at 90° to a fence with a base between both. The workpieces to be routed are held against that fence to push them for routing the tenons. To keep it at 90º with the router table fence, the jig fence that holds the workpiece slides on a runner that is fitted into a slot in the router table. That slot is perfectly parallel to the router table fence. And to keep both the runner and the jig fence making a 90 degrees angle in the desired position I use a piece of plywood between them. It also serves to put a piece of wood strip so I can grab and push the tenoning jig easily to work more comfortably.
First I cut the 33 centimeter long front strip. This is a square section of 4×4 centimeters. In this wood strip I cut a rabbet with the table saw so that the 1 cm thick piece of plywood will fit perfectly flush. I cut the piece of 1cm thick plywood with dimensions of 15×20 centimeters. I could route the rabbet on the router table, but since I was already working with the table saw, I adjusted it, as seen in the picture and in the video, to cut the corner of the square section wood strip to fit flush there the plywood base.
I join the square section strip and the plywood base on the runner in such a way that they are separated from the router bit when the runner is fitted in the slot on the router table. I drill pilot holes in the square section strip so I can screw a new strip in the front of it. That new wood strip will be the fence of the router table tenon jig, and I can adjust it laterally and it also works as sacrificial piece to avoid chipping when routing the tenons. Thus, when routing for example tenons to make wood joints, the router bit leaves a perfect cut, since the sacrificial strip holds the wood grain at the exit of the router bit thus avoiding splintering.
