The Rolling Router Table
(Page 2 of 3)
June/July 1996
By David Mukamal Camp
Building Up the Work Surface
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The ends of these spools can be extremely uneven with warped slats, jutting nails, and rods with nuts on the ends creating quite obstructive protrusions. I screwed down a plywood frame that spanned the bobbling slats and built up the area around the nuts. I found that 3/4" plywood underneath the 3/4" melamine top would bring the whole shebang even with the height of my table saw. You may need to use a different thickness to attain this objective. I used some construction shims to fill gaps under the frame, and checked with a straightedge to make sure my screws didn't create any high or low spots (see photo). It is important to get this surface as flat as possible.
Making the Top
Cut a piece of melamine to the same dimensions as your plywood frame. Before you can attach it to the rest of the assembly, you need to make the rabbeted cutout for the router. You will be replacing the plastic base plate on your router with a larger one that it will hang from. I recommend using replacement base plate #141 from Woodhaven (1-800 344-6657) or a 3/8 piece of Lexan. You can just leave this plate attached to the router and lift it out of the table for hand-held operations.
To make the recess for the plate, center it on the melamine and trace around it. Now mark another rectangle 1/2" away inside this one. Drill 3/8" holes in the corners of this inside rectangle and then cut it out with a jigsaw (see photo). This smaller opening will become the lip that supports the base plate. Your next mission is to rout out the area around the opening to a depth that will position the base plate flush to the surface of the melamine. The base plate should fit snugly into this recess with no side play.
The way to do this is to set up guides for a pattern-trimming bit using the base plate to position them. My pattern trimmer (#25204 from Woodhaven) has a flush bearing on top and the cutter is 1" long, so I used 1 "-thick guide boards. Set the base plate in position and apply the boards tightly against it, sticking them down to the melamine with double-sided carpet tape (see photo). Now lift the base plate out and set it on top of the guide boards to help you set the router depth of cut. With the router on top of the plate, lower the cutter until it just barely comes in contact with the melamine. Now remove the plate and rout the recess.
