My New Router Table

OLD Router Table

-- Danger lerks behind every oppertunity to learn common sense - Chip Estrada

Nice table Frankton. I really like the bit storage. I havent made one yet for my table that I built.

-- Tim, Missouri ....Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the heck happened

Very nice table. I like the way you made the fence have an internal dust collection.

Could you please explain why under the table vacuum port is bad in a router table? I thought it was pretty common. I was actually thinking of enclosing my router table from underneath for sound deadening and better vacuuming from underneath.

-- - Eric Indianapolis, IN

Nice table looks great!

-- Ken, "Everyday above ground is a good day!"

I have the same question as Eric-S. Why is it bad to enclose the router and vacuum the waste from under the table?

—Russ

-- My table saw laughs at hot dogs. http://thesorteddetails.blogspot.com/

Nice router table.

-- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

A router draws air from the bottom of the tool and runs it past the motor and bearings for cooling then it blows it out past the bit to clear dust and keep bit cool too. If you enclose the router in a vacuum box to suck the dust right back into the enviorment the router lives in you then recycle some of the dust through the router. PS some routers are not as noisy as others, my dewalt is LOUD! Back to dust, you can hook up an isolator to the bottom of the router to suck dust down and avoid going through the router case with it, but then you need to move more air than the router forces through its self, you need a big shop vac. Shop vac’s are noisier than routers. My Dust Collector moves more air than a shop vac but at a lower volocity so to keep particles in suspension you need to maintain airflow. My sugestion is to make the oppening for fresh air to the back of the table and have an access door on the front for ajustments to deaden the sound. I like this idea but I also like having access to the router more for speed adjustments and locking the case after making slight hight adjustments. So I opter to leave the front open and I push most of my excess dust and particles off to the rear and that could cause issues. Point is if you run your router alot you need to keep it clean and cool. Heat is the electric motors enemy.

-- Danger lerks behind every oppertunity to learn common sense - Chip Estrada

I’ve seen bottom enclosures(Rocklers) that has a vent adjustment in addition to the suciton port. Would this help? All I know is I really hate having to vaccum my entire shop after every router table use. The fence dust collector only helps if edge routing which is why I want to enclose the router and vacuum from the bottom in addition to the fence.

-- - Eric Indianapolis, IN

I am not an expert on this so I can’t weigh in on Rocklers product. I just know that having the router motor immersed in any amount of dust is exponentially bad. My fist table was a cheap table top set up, my second table is the old table except there was a door on the front and the suction was from underneath. It was awesome! very little dust escaped, it was a dream come true, except 3 months later after heavy use it destroyed my router. So then I put an isolator on it and opened the door and I hooked up a shop vacuum to the isolator and plugged the shop vac into the router switch so they turned on together. WOW WAS THAT LOUD! and didn’t work as well either, so I read an article on the sucking fence, that work even better, but only when I use the fence. So I built a few other tools to hook up to the router suction port that work when the router fence is not being used. I will post those pictures latter.

-- Danger lerks behind every oppertunity to learn common sense - Chip Estrada

This image is not my own. It is from a FineWoodworking article, The Ultimate Router Table by John White: http://www.finewoodworking.com/fwnpdf/011153055.pdf

They utilized a piece of aluminum to deflect the downward air away from the bit. Very clever and I might have to utilize this. This picture is missing the right side which is actually very important to showing how the deflector is working so click on the picture to view the entire image

-- - Eric Indianapolis, IN

Eric the link does not work could you try again?

The article is for FWW members only so if you get a login screen thats why.

The link for the image though is: http://s824.photobucket.com/albums/zz162/seidele/?action=view&current=Untitled.jpg

-- - Eric Indianapolis, IN

Thanks for the info, Frankton. I see what you are saying now.

—Russ

-- My table saw laughs at hot dogs. http://thesorteddetails.blogspot.com/

Nice. This would work well, great example Eric!!

-- Danger lerks behind every oppertunity to learn common sense - Chip Estrada

So here is a drawing of what my table does

-- Danger lerks behind every oppertunity to learn common sense - Chip Estrada