The ups and downs of routing

[Knot Competent]

I have learned so much from this forum, and enjoyed the cameraderie/Kameraderie, well the companionship of fellow wood manglers as I went. It’s encouraged me to attempt to do things I never dreamed I could do, and for this I’m very grateful to you all.

Well, having got that out of the way, I could do with some more help. I built myself a router table, mounted my cheapo horrendo £25 router in it, and have to my astonishment actually produced some acceptable results. I followed one suggestion and used a car jack as my raising/lowering mechanism, but my router is so cheap that the locking lever seems to allow the router to slowly descend whilst in use, and the jack’s movement is so coarse that fine adjustment is well nigh impossible.

I know there are several (far too expensive) proprietory raising/lowering systems on the market, but I’ve been getting so much pleasure out of making jigs etc. from scrap material which cost next to nothing and I wondered if any of you guys had perfected a system out of scraps and bolts which you could share. Or do you all eventually spend rather a lot of money on what should be a safe and simple system?

Regards, John

 

[johnelliott]

The way I do this is to get a length of M6 studding and some M6 nuts from B&Q. Cut it into two and screw each piece into the router base so that there is one length coming up each side of the router. You might get lucky and find existing M6 tappings in the router base.
Then, cut a piece of scrap wood, drill two holes in it so that it fits over the two pieces of studding and bears on the top of the router. Wind some nuts and washers onto the studding so that the wood, and therefore the body of the router is pushed down (up when inverted). The nuts will stay where they are wound to, and M6 has one thread per millimetre which is convenient although it does make for slow lowering of the router for cutter changes. A ratchet 10mm spanner is handy for this job
John

 

[Woodythepecker]

Unless you win the lottery and then buy a router lift or one of its clones, i do not think you will find much better then John Elliott idea above.

If all else fails have you thought about using a Trend Plunge Bar? At £29 they are not bad value for money.

Regards

Woody

 

[Midnight]

John, personally I'd bite the bullet and upgrade the router to one with a built in (i.e. tried and tested) fine adjust mechanism. There's a few on the market covering a range of budgets..

 

[Guest]

I use a Power Pro non-plunging router in my table.It is easy to fine adjust by screw and is fairly cheap. Works well for me.

 

[Anonymous]

I used the same as Jaymar but after a few months found that it moved around and the runout in the spindle caused problems (dangerous) in the table - there's a thread about this somewhere on here

I replaced it with a plunge routher and never looked back - gave the Performance Pro fixed base away


I think you probably need a better router before considering a lift or raizer

 

[Bean]

Yes Thanks Tony


Bean

 

[Anonymous]

My pleasure Bean :wink: Nothing wrong with it when hand held and upright :lol:

 

[blurk99]

Knot competent
this afternoon i've had a very productive time and finally solved exactly the same problem - i've put a plate of 1/2 ply across the base of my router table and used one of these -

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp? ... 14&recno=1

to raise and lower it - works well enough for me, but i did need to take the springs out of the router (they were a bit 'agricultural' and stiff).

best £19 i've spent in a long while

jim

 

[Bean]

blurk99 Great idea

Bean

 

[Knot Competent]

I hate to sound picky, but I thought at least one of you would come up with a brilliant idea for a home-made mechanism that would involve expenditure of time over money, and involving several of those bits of other people's junk that were saved because "that'll come in handy one day". I'll get no sense of achievement from buying a Trend plunge bar. Surely someone has cobbled together a short length of pipe with a nut welded to the end, run a length of stud through it, fixed a disk of ply to each end and made it a workable and reliable raiser/lowerer? Are my expectations too high? I thought this place was jig heaven!

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi KC

Surely someone has cobbled together a short length of pipe with a nut welded to the end, run a length of stud through it, fixed a disk of ply to each end and made it a workable and reliable raiser/lowerer?

Yes and his name is Ron Fox.

http://www.wealdentool.com/acatalog/tips_12.html

HTH

Cheers
Neil

 

[DaveL]

Surely someone has cobbled together a short length of pipe with a nut welded to the end, run a length of stud through it, fixed a disk of ply to each end and made it a workable and reliable raiser/lowerer?

Well no welding or ply discs but here is the Heath Robinson setup I have been using for some time, just never bothered to take a picture before.

For those interested its a length of M6 stud, two steel washers & nuts, an offcut of 15mm copper pipe, a small piece of MDF , an offcut of window board and a shop made knob with a Tee nut from Screwfix.

The MDF is fixed on where the turret for the plunge stop should be and the stud passes through the hole the for the depth stop rod.
Works OK, cost about 50p

 

[Anonymous]

Genius Dave

Tony's next jig will have to be a diect rip-off of your mastewrpiece mate :wink:

How about changing it for access from above?

 

[Knot Competent]

Tony, I thought you'd NEVER get involved in this! No bits to French polish on this one, surely? I look forward to seeing what you come up with, but please keep it simple as my skill levels clearly aren't up to yours.

Regards, John

 

[DaveL]

Genius Dave

Tony's next jig will have to be a diect rip-off of your mastewrpiece mate :wink:

How about changing it for access from above?

Well feel free to use the idea. I got it from the Trend fine height adjuster, I bought one and had an adaptor made up so it fits my Boche POF500. Very useful when cutting dovetails.

I have tried not to drill the Trend table was I will try to sell it when I make my own table, humm seem to be out of tuits again :wink:

 

[Knot Competent]

Dave, thanks for taking the trouble to photograph your setup, but I have to be honest and confess that I can't work out what does what. Please can you explain it simply? I'm a bit bewildered by all those bits of wood/mdf, and can't see whats at the bottom of the copper pipe. But if it works as well as you say, I'm eager to follow in your footsteps!

Regards, John

 

[DaveL]

John,

I hope this helps.

The stud is fixed to the base of the router by the MDF, it passes through the hole on the body of the router that the depth stop rod was in.
The pipe is just a spacer so the knob is below the body of the router to give clearance to turn it.
The block with the counter bore is there to stop the knob binding and getting chewed up by the end of the pipe.
There is a washer between the pipe and the router another one between the knob and the block.

By turning the knob you can wind the body of the router up towards the table, increasing the depth of cut from the bit. The cheap router does not alway slide freely on the plunge tubes and I keep meaning to take it all to bits to remove the plunge springs. As it has worked for a couple of years and the tuit box is empty thats still to be done. :lol:

 

[Knot Competent]

Thanks, Dave. I can understand that. I'm grateful for you taking the trouble to explain. I'm off to the workshop!!! Well, not JUST now, maybe tomorrow...
Regards, John