| Blog series by Mark Shymanski | updated 510 days ago | 7 parts | 1607 reads | 19 comments total |
Part 1: The setup
I’m finally setting up a shop in the east half of our two-car garage. I’ve got some rudimentary tools and even more rudimentary skills and a whole lot of enthusiasm and a very understanding Wife, so I bought a router to add to the 20+ year old fixed base B+D router I have. (I will have to write a review of the Triton 2 1/4 horse router when I’ve put it through its paces). Working on our dining room table a chair set that a buddy of mine was making for us I asked him abo...
Part 2: My first *JIG*!!!
Well I got a chance to make some sawdust and have trued up the table frame. Was having a bit of a problem tapering instead of truing the frame, but looked a little at my process on the jointer and realized I was leaning on the inbound side too long instead of the out bound side. As I am intending to make this all with lap joints, I trolled through some old PopWoodworking magazines (that a friend of mine has loaned me…I guess that means she wants them back at some point…hmmmm)...
Part 3: The Jig is up
Its been a few days since I could get back in the shop, we’ve had a patch of storms here and a couple of power outages that made me think that maybe I should look a little more at using hand tools :-) I adapted a jig for making half laps that I saw in Popular Woodworking. It works great and I’ve made all the joints for the table top infrastructure. It was taking me longer to set the wood in the jig then it was to make the halflaps… and they all fit really well. I am de...
Part 4: Progress on the sub surface infrastructure
Well I’ve finished cutting the rabbets and halflaps for the framework for the table top and for the upper part of the legs. I’m learning a lot about how to increase the accuracy and precision of my joints as I become more familiar with my router. The jig is working really well and I’ve got a lot more confidence in my ability to build accurate jigs. This is a shot of the final leg joint after its cut. I had to adjust my joints after deciding not to use an 10 degree ...
Part 5: An incremental activity report
Well this may be the slowest progressing router table in history. Managed to work a bit on it this morning. I am just fitting the last half-lap joints for the lower bracing then its on to mounting the bottom platform and the table top. I may get some time to continue this afternoon after a wedding we have to attend.
Part 6: A new record, I got to work on the table in two seperate sessions on the same day!
Wow, I actually managed to get back into the shop after the wedding! It was a nice wedding of friends of Jenns, I’d not met them yet so it was kind of interesting from that perspective. The kids are cooperating this afternoon so I got some more time in. I’ve discovered a good thing about over designing my jig. I made it extra wide and now that I’ve used it a fair bit I’ve nicked it in two places with the router. I just unscrewed the top parts ran them through th...
Part 7: Completed! Now for improvements....
Hello All, Prior to the Canada holiday here I had a few days overtime to cash in so I’ve managed to get in the shop and complete the basic frame of my router table (I’ll have to get pictures of it posted). It is nothing to boast about especially having seen some of the incredible examples here (it is great to have a goal to shoot toward for version II of this table). I am working out how to add a switch to the table so I do not have to fumble around underneath it to turn th...
Bear with me... this whole blog thing is new to me.
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