I thought others might find my cheap ‘n’ easy router lift of interest. It’s based on a £14 bottle jack from Halfords.
You can see how it’s rigged up from the photos. The only special part is the safety arrangement in case you try to lift a locked router. Since the jack is designed to lift 1½ tonnes, it could damage the table. That’s why the jack sits on an insert panel and not the 18mm ply board.
The insert panel is a piece of UPVC board 10mm thick. It’s held in place by two 4X25 wood screws so that excess pressure will strip the threads from the UPVC, i.e. the panel breaks away instead of the table getting damaged.
You can see how it’s rigged up from the photos. The only special part is the safety arrangement in case you try to lift a locked router. Since the jack is designed to lift 1½ tonnes, it could damage the table. That’s why the jack sits on an insert panel and not the 18mm ply board.
The insert panel is a piece of UPVC board 10mm thick. It’s held in place by two 4X25 wood screws so that excess pressure will strip the threads from the UPVC, i.e. the panel breaks away instead of the table getting damaged.