Thread: Custom Router Base plate help

Personally I don't think I would want to use a hand-held router to do this. I can see all sorts of bad things happening.

I would highly recommend that you buy, or make yourself, a decent router table and then make a jig to hold the wood at 45 deg. You can then cut a through slot or use stops on the fence to make stopped slots.

Alternatively, you can make through slots on the table saw by setting the blade at 45 deg or leaving it at 90 deg and using a jig to hold the wood.

Hi dwine,

I've used a handheld router and a 45 deg jig to cut dovetail keys into some corner joints of a toy box I'm making for my expectant daughter. I've used these to reinforce the joints and to also add some detail. I clamp the jig to the workpiece and run the router with a guide collar fitted to the baseplate down the slots in the jig.

The dovetail ones on the body of the box are made with a taper bit and require a router table to make the tapered key in a long strip.

The straight ones on the redgum framework are made using a 12mm straight router bit and 12mm wood to fit, no router table required. After the glue dries, cut them off and sand as required.

The jig is very basic and I've got two plates for different spacing. For it to work with your router you will need a guide collar that attaches under the baseplate of your router to follow the slots. Generic ones are available from Carbatec but mine came with the router. They're the ones that are used with dovetail jigs.

I'm not the sharpest tool in the shop so I researched most of this from the woodsmith.com website and from their videos before I started. (I love watching telly...)

Cheers

Bryan

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Not the sharpest tool in the shed eh! From the look of those pic's, you ain't the bluntest! Nice work