Thread: Edge trimming on a router table

The easiest, quickest and probably safest way is to use a dedicated trimmer router; this is a tiny little fixed base type router you can almost use with just one hand (please forgive me if I have just preached Egg-Sucking (Advanced) 101 )

I've trimmed edging from wider and longer panels than yours via the router table; you just need to have a good set of work supports at each end. You also need to make sure that the fence can be raised high enough so that the excess trim slides underneath it.

Keeping the work vertical against the fence isn't really that hard unless your fence is less than a couple of inches high! You can always screw a high false fence to your existing one, or if not make a one-off fence from a piece of 6" wide MDF nailed at right angles to a thick wooden batten, then clamp the whole thing onto the table in place of the original fence. Feather boards keeping the work pressed against the fence are good, but for a relatively short piece like yours I wouldn't bother.

Hi Jill
do you have a sharp hand plane?
the easiest way to flush trim the edge is to protect the melamine surface with masking take and then use the hand plane -- skewed so the rear sole rides on the masking and the blade takes down the timber edging
when the plane no longer cuts -- remove the masking take, wax the sole of the plane, set the blade very fine, and careful not to scratch the melamine take down the last little bit of edging

for 1200mm I'd probably use a block plane

Thanks for your suggestions . In the end I clamped the Melamine board to my 50x50 x6mm angle straight edge and ran the work past a flush trim bit on the router table, making sure to press down on the Alu edge in contact with the table surface to keep the board vertical. I found that the external supports recommended above were absolutely essential.

Still I stuffed it up, trying to take too big a bite, taking a long chunk out of the edging. I should have first trimmed it down to a couple of mm by hand plane as also suggested above, and then hit the router table. I was not comfortable with a plane doing the final pass.

Another learning experience