Thread: Router Mortising Platform Design

I've seen this site before. For reasons I can't explain his work doesn't appeal to me.

Anyway, it looks like I've got the afternoon in the shed, so I've been out and purchased materials this morning. I had no idea it was so hard to find decent 3/4" ply, so it'll be an MDF affair. I'm hoping to get it finished today.

Thanks Chris. Very intersting site

regards,
Jill

Dear Jill the site you are after is as follows
http://woodgears.ca/slot_mortiser/index.html.
I could not find him on Y tube either although this is where I discovered him. There is a vid on this site of the machine in action. I have also seen him featured in Fine Woodworker so I think he has some merit. Dig into the site because there is other stuff that may be of interest.
Yours 4-6-4

Dear derek I am also a Railfan and the 4-6-4 refers to the wheel arrangement of a Victorian Railways Locomotive.
Yours 4-6-4

Made good progress on this yesterday, only have the router base plate remaining to be completed. The little man wanted to come home early yesterday and play footy with dad, so I'll finish it up tonight

The slide rails on the rear stop had me a little worried initially, I wasn't sure what materials to use. I found some 10mm x 10mm aluminium 'C' section at the BigB whixh has worked really well. Unfortunately the adjustment nobs I found didn't have threads long enough, so I've had to make some with threaded rod and Loctite instead.

There have been several enhancements to the design since I posted images. I'll post some pics tonight.

Finished it up tonight and excusing a little tuning it's beauty!

Enhancements since the last drawing include:
- low profile aluminium lateral stops which don't get clogged with chips
- full width support of the base plate slide in the rear stop
- longer rear stop/guide adjustment range (5mm-80mm bit centre to mounting plate)
- aluminium base plate for better strength

There are a few things to improve on though. The tolerance in the rear guide isn't that tight, there's maybe 0.3mm slack which allows the router to wander just enough to be annoying. I think I'll have to find a way to hook up the dustie to it also, the chips get in all the little nooks and grooves. I'll have to polish up the base plate and give the running surfaces some sort of finish to help with wear and friction.

The last picture is the first mortise cut using a 1/2" spiral upcut bit. As expected the bit is good for 80mm deep mortices. However, the router is only good for 70mm . I'd never used anywhere near the range of this router before and it never occured to me to check it.

If anyone is interested in the sketch let me know.

Dave.

There is a great horizontal router project detailed in the "Woodworking with the router" by Bill Hylton. I can see that being very useful for mortises, especially end grain on long boards.

I would post a photo from the book, but pretty sure its copyright violation.

Great book overall by the way, pretty much a bible of router jigs and techniques.

I managed to use this jig to also make the tenon for a mortice and tenon joint yesterday evening. I looked closely at the Leigh FMT jig and decided I can do this too. Sure enough, after rounding over the corners of the tenon and doing a little trimming it's a beautiful fit. What has taken me 2-3 hours with chisels and hand saws in the past now takes about 30 minutes. Awesome.

Now that I have the process down I'll take some shots of the next one.