Paul Chapman
Established Member
I took my router to a get-together with Rob (Woodbloke) and Pete (Newt) today to discuss router bases and side fences. They thought what I'd done was quite good and that I should post some pictures, so here they are.
I find base plates of large routers rather small, which leads to instability, so I've fitted the Trend square (actually oblong) sub-base
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These are made from solid laminate and as well as improving stability, provide a nice smooth edge to use against straight edges. The sides are parallel, so you can use two straight edges when routing housings
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The base plate also takes Trend guide bushes, so you don't have to remove it when using them.
One snag is that you can't use the normal fence with the base plate fitted. So I made up my own. I started with two pieces of scrap wood, some Trend knobs and a couple of 6mm bolts. I routed two 6mm slots in the wood
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After trying these out on the router I modified them a bit by cutting out two circles and reducing the overall size (mainly to lighten them a little), gluing on two pieces to make the fences deeper, and gluing on two pieces of wood to one of the fences to run along the side of the base plate to make adjustment easier
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Fitted to the router they look like this
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The whole set-up is very secure when cutting mortices or slots for loose tongues, or you can use just one of the fences for other work. I used the Trend sub-base because it takes their guide bushes, but if you don't need this feature you could, of course make up a sub-base from MDF, Tufnol, perspex or something similar.
Cheers :wink:
Paul
I find base plates of large routers rather small, which leads to instability, so I've fitted the Trend square (actually oblong) sub-base
These are made from solid laminate and as well as improving stability, provide a nice smooth edge to use against straight edges. The sides are parallel, so you can use two straight edges when routing housings
The base plate also takes Trend guide bushes, so you don't have to remove it when using them.
One snag is that you can't use the normal fence with the base plate fitted. So I made up my own. I started with two pieces of scrap wood, some Trend knobs and a couple of 6mm bolts. I routed two 6mm slots in the wood
After trying these out on the router I modified them a bit by cutting out two circles and reducing the overall size (mainly to lighten them a little), gluing on two pieces to make the fences deeper, and gluing on two pieces of wood to one of the fences to run along the side of the base plate to make adjustment easier
Fitted to the router they look like this
The whole set-up is very secure when cutting mortices or slots for loose tongues, or you can use just one of the fences for other work. I used the Trend sub-base because it takes their guide bushes, but if you don't need this feature you could, of course make up a sub-base from MDF, Tufnol, perspex or something similar.
Cheers :wink:
Paul
