Incra Router Table/Router Combo's - any advice?

[YorkshireMartin]

I find myself consistently coming up against a bit of a wall with certain jointing tasks. The latest one are simple stopped housing dados on small stock. I realise I could do dado's with nothing more than a chisel, but it would be laborious work as I have quite a few to do. The plunge router (an OF1400) is out, as I've no way to do it safely on such thin stock even with two fences fitted as the dado's need cutting after some other joinery is complete.

A router table is the obvious choice but unless I go for the Festool CMS addon, which frankly I'm not all that convinced by, I seem to be better off buying a 2nd router.

I've looked at the Trend Craftpro table, which seems decent enough but apparently to make use of all its features (lift adjustment), I'd need a T11 router, so that brings the total for table and router, to £550. At the other end of the scale I see that the two most popular choices seem to be JessEm and Incra. JessEm apparently moved production to China which considering their price point, becomes a negative in my view, so I'm left with Incra.

I'd most certainly want to use a router lift with some precision and I'd also want a sturdy and accurate fence. Their LS system seems to fit the bill.

In all honesty, at the moment I've got too many projects on the go (with strict deadlines) to faff about building my own table, even though I know its the best option overall.

So I guess my question is, has anyone used a Incra router table with the trimmings and if so, how did you find it? Are they worth the initial outlay? Can anyone recommend a decent router to work with one, as the usual option in the USA, the Porter Cable, isnt available over here. Also, which lift would you be using to go with any given router?

As always, I bow to your collective knowledge.

I'd really appreciate this as I'm jumping in at the deepend here never having had a router table before.

8)

 

[custard]

Robert Wearing's the man (isn't he always!),

This is a reliable and accurate solution (I've done it often) costing almost nothing in scrap odds and ends. In fact unless you've got an exceptionally good feather board arrangement on your router table (better for example than the one on my Festool table) Robert Wearing's method will be a more precise way of doing the job.

 

[MikeJhn]

I am now on my third router table, been through Triton and Trend and now have what I consider to be the best I can find, its an Axminster UJK table with the Router lift and extract box underneath, very accurate, minute adjustment if needed, excellent fence, but not a cheap option, fitted with an Hitachi 12V Router.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... s-ax887924
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... tor-502701
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... box-502538
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... nce-501281
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... tch-101607

Have a look on U-Tube for Peter Parfitt's review of the same table.

Mike

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Robert Wearing's the man (isn't he always!),



This is a reliable and accurate solution (I've done it often) costing almost nothing in scrap odds and ends. In fact unless you've got an exceptionally good feather board arrangement on your router table (better for example than the one on my Festool table) Robert Wearing's method will be a more precise way of doing the job.

It's the dado itself im not able to do. Have I used the wrong term for https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n3e6Ba6IfhM/maxresdefault.jpg this joint?

But that looks like bloody useful reference.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I am now on my third router table, been through Triton and Trend and now have what I consider to be the best I can find, its an Axminster UJK table with the Router lift and extract box underneath, very accurate, minute adjustment if needed, excellent fence, but not a cheap option, fitted with an Hitachi 12V Router.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... s-ax887924
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... tor-502701
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... box-502538
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... nce-501281
http://www.axminster.co.uk/ujk-technolo ... tch-101607

Have a look on U-Tube for Peter Parfitt's review of the same table.

Mike

Hi Mike.

I've seen these (even handled one of the tables in Warrington) but the price is very close to Incra stuff. What made you choose UJK over say, Incra or JessEm if you dont mind me asking?

Triton I saw but it looks cheap plastic, in contrast to their routers which seem fairly well rated. The Trend one seems OK but hmm.

Cheers.

 

[MikeJhn]

Axminster tools are convenient to me and I was able to handle and use the table at one of their workshops, admittedly I have since fitted the Jessem stock guides to the fence's on both my router table and table saw and very please I am with them, but in the end it was the convenience of the store and Axminster's reputation that swayed me, if I was buying again I would seriously look at the Jessem table from Peter Sefton: https://woodworkersworkshop.co.uk/collections/jessem as his service has been exemplary since buying gear from him, but only having handled the stock guides I can't speak for the table, if the stock guides are anything to go by though, the table should be exceptional.

Mike

 

[custard]

Sorry Martin, now I get it.

Myself I wouldn't make that housing on a router table, as it would be very tricky passing it over the cutter while also keeping it exactly square to the axis of movement.

Personally I'd do it on a Festool MFT table with a router running in the track, but it would equally easy if you had a few to do to make up a little jig (like an old fashioned mitre box) and have the router tracking across that at 90 degrees. Alternatively a simple dado or housing jig would get the job done, google "dado router jig" and I'm sure there'll be loads.

Good luck!

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Sorry Martin, now I get it.

Myself I wouldn't make that housing on a router table, as it would be very tricky passing it over the cutter while also keeping it exactly square to the axis of movement.

Personally I'd do it on a Festool MFT table with a router running in the track, but it would equally easy if you had a few to do to make up a little jig (like an old fashioned mitre box) and have the router tracking across that at 90 degrees. Alternatively a simple dado or housing jig would get the job done, google "dado router jig" and I'm sure there'll be loads.

Good luck!

Thanks dude, I'll look into the jig option.

The plot thickens.....

I have an MFT and the OF1400 but despite having just about every clamp going and scrap wood galore, I can't make it work. The problem with guided routing for me has been that there are minute variations in flex on the rail/router. It results in a very very slight difference per pass and always has The cut needs to be multiple passes, as the top is finished and regardless, wouldn't confirm precisely to any given cutter size. It might be how I have it set up I'm not sure, but this dado is to house a table top and will be on full view, so has to be perfect.

Principle problem with the MFT rail was lack of proper support for the rail, at least without machining scraps. But even then, because it's a stopped dado, I can't seem to get the clamps in the right position to allow the router AND the levelling outrigger to pass. A sub base may do it, I'm not sure?

The reason I went for a router table is because I figured it would work and I have felt like I needed one previously, but if you have an alternative solution and dont think the router table would work...I'm all ears as this is a big money purchase potentially.

Depth of cut only needs to be 5mm.

Cheers

 

[custard]

I'm not trying to talk you out of a router table, but you absolutely can do precise work with an OF1400 and an MFT!

I'll set up exactly that tool combination, photo the process, and post it here. You're right, there are a couple of issues with ensuring no play, and the router needs a packing piece double stick taping to the sole, but I'll show you how I've dealt with those issues. Just give me a day or two.

 

[PAC1]

I have the Incra system complete with router lift. It is very accurate and repeatable. It works as a traditional router table and jigs for joinery such as dovetails. Whether it was worth the additional expense, the jury is still out but I think it was. I got it to do some of the complicated joints but not as yet used it to do what I intended. You need to make sure that the router lift will work with your router as there is a limited choice. The other choice you need to make is metric or imperial. Metric makes most sense but you have to remember that the system was designed in imperial and the metric alterations are an after thought. Therefore whilst it works perfectly the metric choices are more limited. The other point that is often overlooked is that it does need a lot of space to accommodate the track. You need about 1.5m x 1m of space to store it.
Peter Sefton stocks the system and add ons

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I'm not trying to talk you out of a router table, but you absolutely can do precise work with an OF1400 and an MFT!

I'll set up exactly that tool combination, photo the process, and post it here. You're right, there are a couple of issues with ensuring no play, and the router needs a packing piece double stick taping to the sole, but I'll show you how I've dealt with those issues. Just give me a day or two.

Oh good lord are you sure you want to go to all that trouble? That would be amazing. Over the year or so I've had the setup I've used it for all manner of things but this one had me beat I don't mind admitting. It was dead on accurate laterally, but vertical was difficult to maintain as was depth.

I'd be fascinated to see how you overcame these issues!

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Housings, (dados if you are going to go all American) are easily cut with a plunge router with a bush and a Tee Square type jig. I recently posted this in another forum.

Easier to do than a router table, and costs almost nothing to make. The one shown is for doing quite long housings, but easy to make ones to suit the scale of the job in hand.

Mike.

 

[custard]

Hello Martin,

I'm going to assume you're working with plywood as I know you use ply a lot (doesn't really matter if it's solid timber or sheet goods, but I'll try and cover all the main options). And I believe you've got a OF1400 router and an MFT, so we'll use them. Incidentally, the alternative shop made jig that Mike showed works perfectly well too!

Step one is to get the callipers on the ply, because ply is sold in nominal thicknesses you need to establish the actual thickness of this particular sheet. In fact I've had ply where the thickness varied within a single sheet, so take a few measurements to get a clear idea what you're dealing with. Here a 12mm sheet is coming in at about 11.8mm. So if we'd routed a 12mm housing it would have been a rubbish fit. Actually, this might be one of the very few times in a year that I'd have broken out my dado stack and done the job on the table saw, because then I could have shimmed the dado stack to exactly 11.8mm and cut a through housing in a single pass. But no matter, a router will be fine.

Step two is to cramp a perfectly parallel backing strip onto the MFT, butting it up against a series of dogs. This backing strip should be identical in thickness to the workpiece. Personally I don't bother with the fence that came with the MFT, I generally just use dogs, if I cut a lot of odd angles on the MFT I might think differently, but I use the table saw or mitre saw for that. I like to have a selection of dogs of different heights so I can always find dogs that are bit shorter than the workpiece.

It's important to cramp the backing piece down as per the photo, you're going to run the router through it and it will subsequently both show the cut position and prevent spelching, therefore it mustn't move. It's worth checking the cramps and dogs won't foul the router or the cutter, as I said, once this is secured you don't want to move it.

Next move the workpiece into position. You'll have marked up your housing positions on the workpiece so you can position these marks against the notch you've cut in the backing piece.

You said you're making a series of housings in thin workpieces, I'd try and start with a wider board, cut all the housings, then rip it down to final width afterwards. There is one other little wrinkle that you might want to consider. If the ply thickness shows more than 0.1mm variability within the sheet, or if you're dealing with several sheets which vary in thickness, then you might want to consider routing the housing to, say 10mm, and doing a second operation on the shelves to cut them down to this same 10mm thickness. Even on solid timber I sometimes go this route. Yes, it's a second operation, but there's also an advantage in that the little shoulder on the shelf essentially sets the shelf width very accurately, if you stop shy of the floor of the housing by about 0.1mm you're setting the width very accurately and you won't get caught out by a splinter or a bit of waste trapped in the housing that prevents the joint closing up. Or if the router has lifted a whisker during the housing cut it doesn't matter. On a top end job it also gives you an opportunity to fettle the fit very, very precisely. Just a thought.

Now on to the main two problems you've encountered, the router skewing and tipping as it cuts. Let's take skewing first,

Your Festool track actually has two raised guide sections, not one. And by using both of them, as per the above photo, you can get a very rigid set up. Just in case you're not aware, underneath each of these black mounting blocks are two screws (arrowed) which you use to take up any slack. It's worth playing around with these to establish the ideal balance between ease of movement and rigidity.

Next is the tipping issue. Basically you have to compensate for the approximately 4mm gap due to the thickness of the guide rail. This photo shows three alternative solutions,

From left to right, first is the little adjustable foot on the OF1400. If you lightly sand the leading edge you'll find it tracks better. At a pinch I'll use this, but I prefer something larger and more precise. Next is a piece of hardwood that's been planed to an exact fit. I keep a few of these in the router systainer as I use them regularly, just sticking them on with double stick tape as required. Finally I keep a selection of shim stock in the workshop so you could double stick tape a selection together (in this case it's white 1mm and green 3mm) and then stick them on the routers sole plate.

Interestingly when Festool released their monster big router (I forget it's name) they included a separate sole plate which compensated for the track thickness. I was sure that Festool would soon relaunch the OF1400 with a similar arrangement, but that was years ago and it's never yet happened.

One potential advantage of the MFT for this job is, if you wanted stopped housings, it's easy to fit stops onto the track for precise and repeatable cuts. The other benefit of the MFT is, if you have a crane system, then the power cable and extraction house run smoothly and don't snag or get in your way. It's just another of those little workshops irritations that you're then spared!

Last point, for a shallow 5mm deep through housing I'd use a spiral down cut bit on ply or veneered surfaces, you'll get away with down cut on a shallow housing and the show surface will be really clean.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Hello Martin,

I'm going to assume you're working with plywood as I know you use ply a lot (doesn't really matter if it's solid timber or sheet goods, but I'll try and cover all the main options). And I believe you've got a OF1400 router and an MFT, so we'll use them. Incidentally, the alternative shop made jig that Mike showed works perfectly well too!

Step one is to get the callipers on the ply, because ply is sold in nominal thicknesses you need to establish the actual thickness of this particular sheet. In fact I've had ply where the thickness varied within a single sheet, so take a few measurements to get a clear idea what you're dealing with. Here a 12mm sheet is coming in at about 11.8mm. So if we'd routed a 12mm housing it would have been a rubbish fit. Actually, this might be one of the very few times in a year that I'd have broken out my dado stack and done the job on the table saw, because then I could have shimmed the dado stack to exactly 11.8mm and cut a through housing in a single pass. But no matter, a router will be fine.



Step two is to cramp a perfectly parallel backing strip onto the MFT, butting it up against a series of dogs. This backing strip should be identical in thickness to the workpiece. Personally I don't bother with the fence that came with the MFT, I generally just use dogs, if I cut a lot of odd angles on the MFT I might think differently, but I use the table saw or mitre saw for that. I like to have a selection of dogs of different heights so I can always find dogs that are bit shorter than the workpiece.



It's important to cramp the backing piece down as per the photo, you're going to run the router through it and it will subsequently both show the cut position and prevent spelching, therefore it mustn't move. It's worth checking the cramps and dogs won't foul the router or the cutter, as I said, once this is secured you don't want to move it.

Next move the workpiece into position. You'll have marked up your housing positions on the workpiece so you can position these marks against the notch you've cut in the backing piece.



You said you're making a series of housings in thin workpieces, I'd try and start with a wider board, cut all the housings, then rip it down to final width afterwards. There is one other little wrinkle that you might want to consider. If the ply thickness shows more than 0.1mm variability within the sheet, or if you're dealing with several sheets which vary in thickness, then you might want to consider routing the housing to, say 10mm, and doing a second operation on the shelves to cut them down to this same 10mm thickness. Even on solid timber I sometimes go this route. Yes, it's a second operation, but there's also an advantage in that the little shoulder on the shelf essentially sets the shelf width very accurately, if you stop shy of the floor of the housing by about 0.1mm you're setting the width very accurately and you won't get caught out by a splinter or a bit of waste trapped in the housing that prevents the joint closing up. Or if the router has lifted a whisker during the housing cut it doesn't matter. On a top end job it also gives you an opportunity to fettle the fit very, very precisely. Just a thought.

Now on to the main two problems you've encountered, the router skewing and tipping as it cuts. Let's take skewing first,



Your Festool track actually has two raised guide sections, not one. And by using both of them, as per the above photo, you can get a very rigid set up. Just in case you're not aware, underneath each of these black mounting blocks are two screws (arrowed) which you use to take up any slack. It's worth playing around with these to establish the ideal balance between ease of movement and rigidity.



Next is the tipping issue. Basically you have to compensate for the approximately 4mm gap due to the thickness of the guide rail. This photo shows three alternative solutions,



From left to right, first is the little adjustable foot on the OF1400. If you lightly sand the leading edge you'll find it tracks better. At a pinch I'll use this, but I prefer something larger and more precise. Next is a piece of hardwood that's been planed to an exact fit. I keep a few of these in the router systainer as I use them regularly, just sticking them on with double stick tape as required. Finally I keep a selection of shim stock in the workshop so you could double stick tape a selection together (in this case it's white 1mm and green 3mm) and then stick them on the routers sole plate.

Interestingly when Festool released their monster big router (I forget it's name) they included a separate sole plate which compensated for the track thickness. I was sure that Festool would soon relaunch the OF1400 with a similar arrangement, but that was years ago and it's never yet happened.

One potential advantage of the MFT for this job is, if you wanted stopped housings, it's easy to fit stops onto the track for precise and repeatable cuts. The other benefit of the MFT is, if you have a crane system, then the power cable and extraction house run smoothly and don't snag or get in your way. It's just another of those little workshops irritations that you're then spared!

Last point, for a shallow 5mm deep through housing I'd use a spiral down cut bit on ply or veneered surfaces, you'll get away with down cut on a shallow housing and the show surface will be really clean.

Thank you very much for going to all that trouble custard. The shim idea is something I'm going to look at doing. It's interesting about the router housings for the guide rails. I do have them fitted properly and adjusted, but even with minute turns of the screws, its either too loose or theres too much friction. Maybe closer examination is required.

I'm working in solid wood on this occassion, I probably should have said. dimensions wont be uniform as it's been planed with a finish planer, which does somewhat complicate matters, however combining your approach with some jiggery pokery might get it to work. I'll have to have a further play about with it, paying particular attention to your suggetion of machining the dado housing narrow then planing to fit.

 

[custard]

combining your approach with some jiggery pokery might get it to work. I'll have to have a further play about with it, paying particular attention to your suggetion of machining the dado housing narrow then planing to fit.

This diagram might explain the arrangement better, it's not so much planing it to fit as machining a small rebate to get a really good fit.

Good luck!

 

[Peter Sefton]

It looks like we are a fair distance from you Martin but you are more than welcome to come and visit the shop to look at our router kit, I have both the Incra and JessEm set up and being used in my school workshops so you can see them in action. We also have a Porter Cable style router being produced for us to my specification to fit our Metric Incra and JessEm lifts. The gear is all metric not imperial converted as the older stuff was. I think if you can visit us you will see the difference between it and some of the other brands mentioned, the North Americans know their routing products. If not we will be at Harrogate in November and usually take at least one router table along, this year we might take the new JessEm kit all made in their Canadian workshop.

Let me know if we can help

Cheers Peter

 

[YorkshireMartin]

It looks like we are a fair distance from you Martin but you are more than welcome to come and visit the shop to look at our router kit, I have both the Incra and JessEm set up and being used in my school workshops so you can see them in action. We also have a Porter Cable style router being produced for us to my specification to fit our Metric Incra and JessEm lifts. The gear is all metric not imperial converted as the older stuff was. I think if you can visit us you will see the difference between it and some of the other brands mentioned, the North Americans know their routing products. If not we will be at Harrogate in November and usually take at least one router table along, this year we might take the new JessEm kit all made in their Canadian workshop.

Let me know if we can help

Cheers Peter

I've spent about 2 hours on your site this week Peter. I still haven't a clue which bits I'd need. If I do go ahead with a purchase, it will be with you as Rutlands are on my personal dung list. For want of a better phrase.

What I'd really like to do is come on one of your courses. Maybe one day

 

[Lonsdale73]

I have the Incra LS Positioner system and I think it's great, probably because it makes me look more competent than I really am!

 

[Glynne]

I can recommend Peter's routing course (Chris Yates is the tutor) as well as the Laminating & Veneering course. I did have a good look at the Incra which is amazing, but for me it was more the space issue rather than the cost that persuaded me not to invest.
I can also let you know of a quirky (but nice) B&B nearby if you decide to treat yourself.

 

[MikeJhn]

Hello,

Housings, (dados if you are going to go all American) are easily cut with a plunge router with a bush and a Tee Square type jig. I recently posted this in another forum.



Easier to do than a router table, and costs almost nothing to make. The one shown is for doing quite long housings, but easy to make ones to suit the scale of the job in hand.

Mike.

Brilliant, just what I was pondering, how I was going to put a shelf inside an already made cabinet without visible support, love this forum.

Mike