Router Table Cabinet

It’s very nice and well done and it will be a great addition to your shop.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

-- helluvawreck aka Charles, http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

Real nice work here.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Nice work. Should provide you with years of satisfaction and service.

-- Brad, Texas, https://www.youtube.com/user/tonkatoytruck/feed

Nice work Travis. Thanks for sharing.

-- Scott in Texas

It is a nice and useful cabinet. I am going to make one for me soon. Can you possibly share the plan with me or let me know the source of the plan?

-- Byung Soo Kim, Seoul, S.Korea

An excellent bit of work!

Richard

-- Live to dive.... dive to LIVE!

Looks great! Also on my todo list!
Which top and router plate did you go with?

Thanks everyone for the nice comments

As for plans, I’ve got some rough sketches and looked at a lot of different cabinets online. I figured out what overall dimensions I wanted and the size I needed for the router lift to fit in, but other than that It’s not overly complicated.

Top is the HP laminated top from Rockler. The plate is an Incra Lift (which is a Jessem Mast-R-Lift with magnetic insert plates. They also make a set of plates (which I got) that have vent holes cut in them. They make the downdraft vacuum system work even better. The fence in a Rockler one as well, obviously with extended fences (so I can easily make them zero clearance and it’s easier for taller parts.) with the added micro adjusters on the ends.

The compartment that houses the router is pretty small with only the one air hole. I’m a bit concerned about the router overheating. I have Norm’s plan which is a much bigger space and more air holes and my router still gets very hot when in use for an extended period.
Just some friendly advice to keep an eye on that so you don’t cook your router.

-- "Fine Woodworking" is the name given to a project that takes 3 times longer than normal to finish because you used hand tools instead of power tools. ----Mike, Waukesha, WI

Thanks Mike! I did consider that, and I’ll keep an eye on it for sure. My model was the this: http://incra.com/product_rta_cleansweep.html which is much smaller. The compartment that the lift/motor is in is roughly 24×12x12, so it might be bigger than it looks.

Also, as a wood hobbyist is doesn’t have all that long of “on” runs, but it certainly something to consider. With the vacuum throat plates it actually pulls pretty much air through the table (which, then blows directly over the motor). My logic on offsetting the vent from the fence to one side and the out to the dust collector on the other was to make the air swirl around and make sure there was air flow over the router motor (and hopefully pull more chips out). There is a surprising amount of air/dust movement in there.

That said, it would suck to cook the router!

What a great table you put a ton of work into this one for sure

Welcome to LJ’s

-- Wood and Glass they kick (well you know) Have a great day - Dug

Thank you for the answer on the plan. It helps.

-- Byung Soo Kim, Seoul, S.Korea

Nice build. And, wow, that’s a TALL fence! ;-)

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the wood species used?

-- "As are the things we make, so are we ourselves." - Lin Yutang

Alright, I decided to take a crack at SketchUp….here are some basic plans. It’s missing various parts like the supports for the slides and what not, but if you can build the rest you can figure that out.

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=ue90c6525-9235-42f6-bd37-de9729c9ee7e

As for the wood, the raised panels are 1/2 MDF (would have been better to use 3/4, but I had a sheet of 1/2 around), all the solid wood is Poplar, and the plywood bottom drawers are birch plywood (3/4 for bottom, 1/2 for drawer sides and bottoms).

And yes, my thought was to make it taller…this way it’s tall enough that it can go in either way, giving me 4 corners on each fence to use as zero tolerance fences. When 2 get chewed up I can just cut it shorter. In retrospect, it’s a lot of work that I didn’t need. I’ll probably make one that’s just the stock height when this ones chewed up.