Tablesaw Workstation #14: Thanksgiving's over - back to work (so to speak)

It’s not really “back to work” since I’m retired and doing this because I want to – anyway, the visitors have gone home so I can finish this workstation.

I screwed the tops in place today, then used the old piece of steel angle that used to provide support for the back of the rip fence to reinforce the back, tying the two sides together. I used about 6 or 7 #10×1 1/4” flathead wood screws to attach it to the oak edgebanding – seems secure. The plans called for an oak cleat along the back, with a notch cut for motor clearance but in my case this works better. The motor comes up tight against the left top when it’s tilted to 45 degrees, in fact I had to drill a clearance hole with a big Forstner bit to get the last degree or two. The rip fence was installed with the same 3 machine screws it had in it before, going into the front of the cast iron table. Then I added #14×1 1/2” flathead wood screws in 6 more places. These help to keep things aligned and also to stiffen the assembly.

Today’s final task was to jack up the workstation and remove the piece of plywood it’s been sitting on to take up for the sag. With everything screwed together tight the sag is pretty much gone. It rolls around on the casters as well as it needs to, considering that it will most likely never leave the garage where it was built.

Here’s a picture from the back, showing the angle screwed in place.

And here’s one from the front.

I still need to make a block to fill in the hole over the motor – it will be removable for angled cuts – and cut the hole for the router mounting plate. I also need to put a piece of MDF between the front and rear router table supports – this will help to contain the dust. Then I need to drill a hole in the rear router table support for a dust port and maybe make a router table fence – I may try it for a while with just the rip fence that I have. At least now I have a nice tool that I can use to make all these things!

-- John