My table

[pomjohn]

OK I need 1 more piece of help,any bright ideas on how to make or buy a good compound slide, I tried routing a slot 20mm wide and 10mm deep and carefully fitting a piece of hardwood onto the guide that fits into the slot but I am not happy with the result.
Thanks all pomjohn

[derekcohen]

What I did once, when I built a sliding table for a router table, was this:

Use angle aluminium (from Bunnings), a length as long as the sliding table. One piece for each side. I think the aluminium thickness I used was about 3mm.

Route grooves into the sides of sliding table top deep enough to (each) take one "arm" of the angle aluminium (you can use a table saw, router or a biscuit machine to do this). The table top then slides along this, suspended and wedged in (much better than the wood spline you were using). The tighter the fit, the less slack you will have.

____ ____
angle - - angle
alum - - alum

In the other (vertical) "arm" of the aluminium section, drill evenly spaced holes along its length for the screws that you will use to fix the slide to the sides of its cradle. Carefully turn the holes into vertical slots (so you have a height adjustment for the table - you need to be able to level it with the top of the router table).

I used 16mm MDF (edged with Jarrah for strength) for the sliding table. This was cradled between the side of the router table and a bracket built to the same height.

Gee, I hope all this makes sense. I long ago dismantled the table I built since I felt that, although the sliding table worked well, it was an unnecessary complication. It's successor is built into my table saw, pictures of which I published on this site a short while ago.

Any questions are welcomed.

Regards

Derek (in Perth)

[soundman]

Veritas (i think) make a slot insert extrusion, you rout the slot & screw the extrusion into thy slot. The extrusion is contrived that you can adjust the tightness of fit by screwing it down harder.

I seem to rember seing it in Eithe carbatec Or timbecon catalogue.

[Vonrek]

STOP!! dont cut into that beautiful, flat table surface. The answer to your problems are sleds!! Go out and get a copy of Bill Hylton's "Router Magic, tips and tricks to unleash your router's full potential".
Mr Hylton's suggests that mitre slides are a table saw tool and should be left there. He instead suggests the use of custom (for the job at hand) sleds that ride on the front edge of the router table. Sleds have the advantage of backing up the work = no tearout and can also be made to sacrificially have the ability for zero clearance work. You can clamp your workpiece to the sled with a toggle clamp which increases safety and accuracy. The cutting action of a saw blade in a table saw is effectively downwards, hence the table top acts to back up the work and a simple sliding mitre guide may be sufficient, however the cutting action of a router bit in a table is horizontal (does this make sense??), hence the need for some kind of backing up. sleds can be designed to do this while increasing safety and accuracy and not interupting the nice flat surface of the table.
In the book, Mr Hyltons gives designs for a tenon sled, specially designed router push sticks and a coping and stile sled with zero clearance backup. These basic designs can be adapted to do all kinds of operations, a shooting sled could be designed to square and trim the ends of boards, a more complicated version I've seen is used for routing mortises.
So, fill in that routed grrove with a nice piece of hardwood and call it a feature or an anti-friction/wear insert and start making sleds!!

If you want more info drop me an email or post.

Cheers, Tim