Thread: Trenching...and then not :/

I needed to cut several meters of T-slot for the new bench, so I cobbled up a trenching jig for my router. I like fe$tool, and accept that I'll pay many money for a lot of their tools, but their trenching jig is a staggering $350! For a chunk of acrylic with a few knobs. Crazy.

I didn't have ideal raw materials, and didn't want to venture out into virus-laden world, so made do with stuff lying around. Laminated two 5ml pieces of acrylic, stole some clamp hardware from some china tools, and hacked up a couple of mounting bolts to fit the router base.

Trenching template top.jpg Trenching template front.jpg

I was very pleased with the result - made a few errors: the knobs foul against the dust port on narrow stock (need to lengthen the base), and dust collection is terrible. But it tracked square and straight, and I happily cut around 5 linear meters of slot.

And I finally got to use the Axminster T-slot cutter that I've had lying around for 18 months, waiting for me to get to this stage.

t-slots cut.jpg track clamps.jpg

And just when I was smiling hugely, this happened: with about 3 meters of slot to go...

broken t-slot cutter.jpg broken t-slot cutter top.jpg

Pretty frustrating. Replacement bit would need to come from the UK as I don't know of an equivalent available locally. I usually would't buy the same tool if it failed like this one did, but there don't seem to be alternatives. As the pieces end up as a 4m long run of slot, I need it all to be the same or the clamps will foul.

Bit is out of warranty - even if this sort of thing was covered. It was something I bought a long time back knowing I'd need it for this. Gave it a quick try when it arrived, then stuck it in a box until required. Pretty disappointing. I'd thought of using the dado blade to cut an initial slot, and then use the bit for the final shape - wish I'd gone with that plan now - it'd probably have lasted long enough to finish the job.