Doweling on router table

Niki,

This is excellent. I don’t know that I’ve seen this sequence of setup steps, simple fixtures, and offset blocks before. Your methods looks simple, clean, and accurate.

I think this would work well for cutting mortises. Use an offset block the width of the mortise, plunge to start the mortise, remove the offset block, rout over to the stop block, finished.

I think perhaps I’ll give this a try this weekend.

thanks for posting

This is great Niki, Another great tip.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Another winner Niki. Like CC said, you almost have your own mortise machine already built.

Keep those jigs and pictures coming.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

Thank you so much for your kind replies

Coloradoclimber
You are correct, it works very good for mortising just that my router is not so strong and cannot take all the depth in one pass, so I’m doing it in a few passes or, I’m making a series of overlapping holes (you can make as many as you want) and than clean the mortise.

I’m using two stops (start & end) even when the board is 3, 4 or 10 feet.

Another possibility is to use the “floating tenon” or “loose tenon” or whatever it’s called (I mean like the Festool Domino does).

niki

Niki, Excellent idea with the doweling on the router table! I have one idea that could make it even better. If you took a router bit that is used for making V grooves (or any pointed bit), you could load it in your router, and raise the bit up and mark on your table where the center of the hole is. The point on the bit will tell you exactly where the center is, so all you have to do is mark your pieces in any pattern, and all you have to do is line up the mark on the board and on the table and drill the hole. Once you have your mark, you can install whatever size bit you want, and it will be centered on the mark you have made on your table. No stop blocks needed! The only adjustment needed would be for the thickness of the wood, and you have to make that adjustment now anyway. If you used a toggle clamp to hold the workpiece down, you could cut your mortises hands free! Good luck!

Thank you JonH

I could not understand your idea with the V groove bit.
If you mean to make a pencil mark 90° to the fence at the center line of the bit, I think that it will lead to some small mistakes in the holes locations.

If you try, you will see that locating the stop and the spacer takes a minute and I think that it’s more “Idiot proof” (for me).

Toggle clamps is very good idea but I cannot find them here in Poland (in USA you can find them in any orange box) but even holding the work with the hands is not a problem for me.

niki

Thanks Niki. Excellent info and clear instructions as ususal.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov