MysticRiver
30th August 2008, 03:12 AM
I have been reading Bill Hylton's Woodworking with the Router (revised edition), which, by the way, is quite a good book. I have also been looking at commercial router tables and the many parts and accessories that can be had to build your own.
I have never used a real router table, and I would like to build one. I'm doing a lot of research and thinking to try to design one that will suit my needs for some time to come.
Hylton suggests not using a plate - just mounting the router directly to the table. He notes that some new routers, such as the Triton MFC001 (mine arrived this week), can crank the collet above the table surface, making it easy to change bits without removing the router from the table.
I can think of two good reasons for using a router plate on a table:
It allows you to pull the router out of the table easily, for bit changes, or to move the router to another table, or to use a different router.
You can mount the router close to the surface of the table without compromising the overall rigidity of the table top, and you avoid a loss of router depth capability
The first point applies to routers that cannot raise the collet above the table for bit changes, and to anyone who has more than one router table or router and wants to change them quickly. So far that's not me.
The second point allows you to use a very thick top (more than an inch) to avoid sagging.
Suppose I don't use a plate. Because I have a Triton router and only plan for one table, the first does not apply.
As for the second, cutting a well on the underside of the table top would allow the router to be mounted closer to the surface without compromising the rigidity of the top - either by cutting a hole in a lower layer before gluing two layers together, or just routing out a well on the bottom of a thick board.
The advantage of a plateless approach is that the table surface is smooth, with plate adjustment needed.
For those of you who have used routers on tables with plates: are there other reasons to use a plate in a router table? What do you think of the plateless approach?
I have never used a real router table, and I would like to build one. I'm doing a lot of research and thinking to try to design one that will suit my needs for some time to come.
Hylton suggests not using a plate - just mounting the router directly to the table. He notes that some new routers, such as the Triton MFC001 (mine arrived this week), can crank the collet above the table surface, making it easy to change bits without removing the router from the table.
I can think of two good reasons for using a router plate on a table:
It allows you to pull the router out of the table easily, for bit changes, or to move the router to another table, or to use a different router.
You can mount the router close to the surface of the table without compromising the overall rigidity of the table top, and you avoid a loss of router depth capability
The first point applies to routers that cannot raise the collet above the table for bit changes, and to anyone who has more than one router table or router and wants to change them quickly. So far that's not me.
The second point allows you to use a very thick top (more than an inch) to avoid sagging.
Suppose I don't use a plate. Because I have a Triton router and only plan for one table, the first does not apply.
As for the second, cutting a well on the underside of the table top would allow the router to be mounted closer to the surface without compromising the rigidity of the top - either by cutting a hole in a lower layer before gluing two layers together, or just routing out a well on the bottom of a thick board.
The advantage of a plateless approach is that the table surface is smooth, with plate adjustment needed.
For those of you who have used routers on tables with plates: are there other reasons to use a plate in a router table? What do you think of the plateless approach?