Thread: Inserting an insert

Mof001

If the original poster has the cheap Carbatec plate I'd say he's wasting his time mounting it in a table, regardless of what router he wants to mount on it. My advice would be to mount it in a dustbin instead

I bought two of these to make a Gifkins dual-router dovetail setup, but they just aren't flat enough to be of any use for any serious routing. Both the examples I purchased had a variation of almost 1mm across the plate surface, but your mileage may vary. I wish Carbatec would do us all a favour and just quietly delete this item....

Following this experience I got a Woodpeckers phenolic plate for my main router table (mounting a Triton 1400W router with the through table height adjuster). Nice and flat, very happy with it.

Hi all

Router plates generally come in 3 materials;

Themoplastics, Perspex, Acrylic, Lexan etc. These can be remelted and recycled, thus under the combined effects of a big router in a hot shed they'll sag.

Thermosetting Plastics, Melamine, Phenolic etc, they can't be melted thus are less likely to sag. At least 10mm thickness to be sure it will stay flat.

Aluminium, the best provided it is, Hard Anodised (for durabilty) has been cut properly not guillotined or stamped.

Obviously we sell B & C but these forum are full of disaster stories associated with plates A.

Also, make sure the router base is flat, a twisted base will even pull an Aluminium plate into a twist.

I hope that this helps?

Regards

Grahame

That's interesting Grahame. When you say to check that the base is flat, do you mean the plasticy part or the metal body of the router? I always remove the plastic part and screw the metal base directly to the phenolic insert using the original screws if I can. Can the metal body be unflat? As Pauline asked, "Please explain".

Originally Posted by Knurl

That's interesting Grahame. When you say to check that the base is flat, do you mean the plasticy part or the metal body of the router? I always remove the plastic part and screw the metal base directly to the phenolic insert using the original screws if I can. Can the metal body be unflat? As Pauline asked, "Please explain".

I mean the base structure without the ring, there was a post in the last few days where a damaged router base pulled a twist into a Woodpeckers Aluminium Plate the solution was to shim the router base to make it flat. Simply dropping a router can be enough to damage the base structure.

Regards

Grahame

Like Pheonix said earlier, I'd talk to the guy at Professional Woodworkers, he helped me with the same concern I had.

Do not waste your time with the carbatec plate. It is not flat, you could do better with a piece of MDF.

M