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"Traditional" router table

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"Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 10:40

For a while, I've been using my table saw outfeed table as a router table. In theory it's a good space saving solution, but I'm not entirely happy with it. The 18mm ply isn't particularly flat, I struggle to get it perfectly flush with the cast iron TS (which means that the router table is not great for longer pieces) and I have to dismantle the fence to be able to use the saw.

I think I've got room to have a dedicated router table and I'll incorporate some storage in it which will help me keep the workshop tidy.

I wondered about making the new table with a plywood/pocket hole construction but I've decided instead to make it using more traditional joinery. Why? I think the main reasons are that I enjoy making joints and making furniture for the workshop this way gives me some good practice for making the things I want to produce from the workshop.

This is the rough sort of construction I'm looking at:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 10:55

The first step was to make the frames for the two end panels.

I got the wood for each "leg" roughly to dimension with the planer/thicknesse and table saw, and then hand planed it to get a nice surface and to make sure everything was square:

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It was also a good excuse to use my number 7. I think that's the oldest tool I have (using an online dating site (no, not that sort of online dating site :eusa-naughty: ) I think it's 1893-1899, although I'm struggling to see how many patent dates it has on the lateral adjustment lever so it could be older).

Next job was to cut them to length.First I squared up an end by knifing a line, cutting to that line and finishing with a block plane:

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I then clamped the four legs (with each squared end flush) and marked the length on all four pieces:

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Then more cutting and end grain planing left me with four finished legs:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 11:25

I did the same with the rails and then marked out the shoulder lines for the tenons and used a mortice gauge to mark out the mortice (having set the pins to a 16mm mortice chisel, fractionally over one-third of the width of the rail).

To cut the shoulders, I made a wall with a chisel and then sawed down:

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To make the cheeks, I chiselled away the bulk of the waste (I had nice straight grain so this worked really well) and then used a router plane to get down to the gauge line:

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I cut the edge cheeks ended up with this:

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The top rails had a haunted tenon. I cut the haunch later.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby sunnybob » 11 Oct 2021, 11:32

I strongly recommend a white melamine top.
I made mine about 4 years ago. You can rout it easily and cleanly for T tracks and mitre slots, and it cleans up a treat.
I edged it with 40mm square cherry to cover the chipboard edges.
I use my router top as a glue up table because its so flat, and I can scape off any spilt glue easily after it dries.
my wood projects are here https://pbase.com/sunnybob
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 11:49

Mortices were marked and chopped out. The bottom rails were simpler as there aren't haunches for those:

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I was happy with that fit. Of course, they were all just as good :eusa-liar: .

I'm never too sure how to deal with haunches. For these I decided to saw down and then chisel out. They ended up not being perfect (some gaps), but, unlike a cabinet door, they'll never be seen:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 11:57

Next up I tackled the bottom rails which join the two side panels together. Wood prep was the same.

I decided these should have twin tenons (12mm each). As I only have one mortice gauge which I like using, I did one tenon/mortice first and then re-set the gauge and marked the second tenon and mortice:

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I was a bit lazy and bandsawed the centre waste before chiselling it out:

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I forgot to take a photo of the mortices being cut, but when I put it together, I realised that one of the tenons interfered with the tenon on the side rail. I decided to shorten one of the double tenons to deal with that:

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Putting that lot together got me here:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 12:08

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I then decided to make the front top rail. This is dovetailed into the top of the leg and also into the side rails.

The layout looked like this:

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Cutting that lot out gave me this:

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I traced the tails out onto the other parts (having clamped the side panel to make sure everything is in its final position):

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The leg is just like a normal half blind dovetail into end grain. Sawed from corner to corner:

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And then chiselled out the waste. For the final cuts, it helps to relieve the centre section first before tackling the corners:

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The fit was pretty good:

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The side rail is a bit different because it's not in end grain. I sawed from corner to corner again and then chiselled sideways (like you would with a rebate I suppose?):

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The outside corner is quite weak, so when test fitting it's important to have the whole joint together because the leg supports that potential weakness:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Andyp » 11 Oct 2021, 12:33

This is becoming a lovely detailed WIP Nick.
Thanks for taking the effort and time to share it with us.
I do not think therefore I do not am.

cheers
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Malc2098 » 11 Oct 2021, 12:36

Nice.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 12:51

sunnybob wrote:I strongly recommend a white melamine top.
I made mine about 4 years ago. You can rout it easily and cleanly for T tracks and mitre slots, and it cleans up a treat.
I edged it with 40mm square cherry to cover the chipboard edges.
I use my router top as a glue up table because its so flat, and I can scape off any spilt glue easily after it dries.


Initially I’m going to use a melamine top from a Trend router table (little bench top one), but I will make a larger purpose built top one day. Melamine certainly seems the way to go (absent shelling out for a cast iron one).
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 13:28

All of the above brings me up to date with this being the current state of play.

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I need to pause for thought at this stage. In particular, I need to think about the construction at the rear of the cabinet - e.g. how drawer runners would be supported. I need to have the section the router is in sealed off from the drawers so that needs to be factored in.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 11 Oct 2021, 21:45

I made and fitted the front drawer rail. Above this will be the space for the router with small drawers either side of it, and below it will be some larger drawers.

Got a piece of wood into shape:

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Then I laid out the joint. It has a single tenon which goes into the front leg and then a sort of tenon which is rebated into the back of the leg:

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This is what it looks like after being cut out:

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After doing both ends, I then had to lay out the joint on the leg. First I ganged the two front legs together to mark the location which will also be the ends of the mortice:

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I didn't take a photo before I started chopping out the mortice and mini rebate, which gave this:

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My "wheel" style marking gauge makes a handy mini router for fine tuning the depth of the rebate:

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Fitted together, it looks like this:

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I then reassembled the growing pile of parts to check my progress:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Woodbloke » 11 Oct 2021, 22:11

This is going to be an excellent router table; decent quality pine and crisp, accurate joinery. No escutcheons in it anywhere? :lol: - Rob
I no longer work for Axminster Tools & Machinery.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Malc2098 » 11 Oct 2021, 22:19

Still nice.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Cabinetman » 11 Oct 2021, 23:43

Yes super work, and lovely clean pine. Personally I only do a haunched m/t when I have grooved through for a panel, you could perhaps have brought all the tenon to the top of the leg (bridle joint) as it won’t be seen when the top is on and it also gives a little more glue area. Ian
Ps sorry just realised it would have messed up the dovetail on the front rail Doh!
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby AndyT » 12 Oct 2021, 09:47

I nearly didn't read this, not being very interested in router tables... but now I see it I like it! More quality joints that go together like the diagrams in a textbook.

Serious question - do you really want to give up all the satisfaction you are clearly getting from this handwork and stand beside a whizzing machine instead, admiring its stand while feeling a bit less happy about what it's making? Are you going in for commercial scale batch production or something?

It's not too late to convert this into a sideboard! :)
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 12 Oct 2021, 10:36

AndyT wrote:I nearly didn't read this, not being very interested in router tables... but now I see it I like it! More quality joints that go together like the diagrams in a textbook.

Serious question - do you really want to give up all the satisfaction you are clearly getting from this handwork and stand beside a whizzing machine instead, admiring its stand while feeling a bit less happy about what it's making? Are you going in for commercial scale batch production or something?

It's not too late to convert this into a sideboard! :)


Don’t worry Andy, I’m not going to give up on the hand tools and will still use them when I can (within reason!). However, I do find the router table really good for some things and I’m hoping it will expand my repertoire.

I’m also not sure this would make a very attractive sideboard!
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Mike G » 13 Oct 2021, 08:00

I saw the title, and didn't bother reading the thread. Router tables aren't the most exciting thing in the world. When I did finally have a look.........my goodness, some real proper joinery, and very very neat too. Excellent stuff. :eusa-clap:

Without looking at it too closely I'm not sure if I would have done the dovetail into the long-grain. And where tenons bump into each other in a corner post, instead of shortening them (or mitre-ing), you can actually lengthen both and make a box joint of them, so a joint within a joint, if you like.

So, a note to myself: disregard thread titles, and read the first post come-what-may!
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 17 Oct 2021, 19:33

I’ve done a little more on this. The front frame is finished. I need to run some 1/4” grooves in the back of the horizontals which will hold drawer runners, and I also need to decide how to support the runners at the back whilst trying to make sure I can actually glue the thing together!

I’m afraid I didn’t do many photos of the latest parts. The vertical dividers are done with twin tenons. The small horizontal dividers have stopped dados so those can slide in from the rear.

Might be a hiatus for a little while as I have some non-woodworking things I need to get on with.

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Last edited by NickM on 22 Oct 2021, 08:34, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby Malc2098 » 17 Oct 2021, 20:59

Getting there!
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby chataigner » 19 Oct 2021, 20:46

Great workmanship. :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap:
Another vote for a melamine top - sometimes wood is not the best choice...
I look forward to more progress pics
Cheers !
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby thetyreman » 21 Oct 2021, 12:01

the joinery looks very tight!
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 08 Nov 2021, 11:13

I had a bit of a hiatus on this whilst we had a few days in the Lake District (I hadn’t been before but really enjoyed the walking we did, rain notwithstanding) and a week visiting family back in Guernsey for the first time in 2 years.

The next job on this was to put in grooves and rebates in the carcass.

The horizontal pieces have a groove in the back which will hold a tongue on the front end of the drawer runners as well as a plywood “dust sheet”. The drawer runners also have grooves along their length for the ply. They’re all 6mm grooves which I did by hand.

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I also made the drawer runners but haven’t taken a photo of those.

There were larger (12mm) grooves to take the end panels and rebates for a base panel and rear panel. These were all stopped so I did them on the current router table.

I’ve also been thinking about the rear of the carcass and, in particular, how to support the drawer runners. In planning this, I need to make sure I can glue everything together!! In the end, I decided to have three vertical pieces to which I can fix the drawer runners (I’ll probably screw them at that end).

Putting all that together got me to this stage:

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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby NickM » 08 Nov 2021, 11:28

I’m now at the stage where I can start flying bits together and started with the two end panels. I had some 12mm MDF left over from our bathroom renovation last year so used that for the panels with a couple of coats of paint to smarten it up a bit.

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Next job will be to glue the front frame together with the side panels. I think I then need to add the base piece before I can glue the rear together. It’s all ended up being quite complicated so the risk of gluing things together in the wrong order is quite high!

(I’ll try to fix the rotated picture next time I’m on my desktop computer.)
Last edited by NickM on 11 Nov 2021, 09:43, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Traditional" router table

Postby droogs » 08 Nov 2021, 12:17

Funny how a cabinet design made to house the shrieking banshee of death can be called "traditional". For me, if it wasn't in use either as a tool or process method before the Battle of the Nile then its "modern".
:lol:


Excellent quality of work being done though, superb tight M&Ts and attention to detail
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