Router table

I have so much storage and shelving and fixtures to build and organizing to be done that it's rather intimidating at times.  It was much easier in my old garage-based "shop" where I had acquired things gradually and found homes for them as they were acquired and just shuffled a couple things around as needed.  This "throw everything in the shop, then organize it" approach I've taken is a lot more difficult.  I'm paying for my earlier lack of patience and now spend a lot of time in the shop just standing around looking at everything trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it.

I tried to focus this past weekend on building some shelves for the things I was unboxing so I would at least have a place to put everything where I could see it so I could better plan additional shelving/storage as well as my tools and materials needs.  But I did stop to build a router table top.  Just the top for now, at the risk of getting ahead of myself.  I haven't decided yet if the router table will take its own floor space, or a bench-top design that I will clamp to my workbench (which I still don't have) when I need to use it.  Although, the more I've thought about it, I think a bench-top design will make the best use of the limited space I have.

I took a lot of inspiration from Kevin Brady and his router table he built using a Shopsmith drum sander/shaper fence which he documented here.  I used the top off of an instructional multi-media cart.  It is MDF with a Formica top on it.

Instead of t-nuts, I re-used the self-tapping screw-in threaded inserts that were already on the underside of the top (for mounting it to the steel cabinet it was used with).  But I did drill a through hole and screw them in from the underside like Kevin did.



I messed up a little when I was routing the rabbet for the router plate.  There are a couple of jagged, uneven edges, and the corners are a different radius, but the router plate still sits tight and flush with the top.  I did not add a miter gauge slot.  I can clamp featherboards to the table and can push stock through with a square block behind it and/or push blocks/sticks. 



I made a few test cuts with the table top sitting on a trash can.  Dust collection is going to be an issue I'll have to work out, but other than that, it works great.  The Shopsmith fence gives a lot of flexibility.  Future improvements will be larger fence faces, bolts with knobs on them to make moving/removing the fence easier, and of course dust collection.