I mused at the possibility of a 'day off' for a few minutes last night, but no, this can wait until old age and infirmity! I started the day with my regular exercises. For more than a year I'd performed a sit-up for each year of my age every other day or so. Yet, today, I hardly need have.
I started the final planning work on a router table. It will be a fixed slab of wood with two channels with rollers facing inwards to guide a length of wood down. These sit 35mm (later amended to 36mm) below the baseplate of a router fixed into a cradle. This cradle will be removable, so that future tools can be used. In mid-morning, the little wheels arrived in the post, so only the wood remained, so I dashed a mile to B&Q and picked this up; then sawed the main parts, including precision cutting an oval for the router base-plate.
There are a few key part. The first is the cradle. For this I've cut a hole in 6mm MDF to match the router base plate. This will hold it firm, and will have taller edges glued to it to give a snug fit. The router will sit on a 10mm wide and 15mm deep shelf to float in the right place, 300mm down the 400mm long track.
The second consideration is the mechanism to move these tracks in and out, the adjustment for exact placement and width of the wood to tool. I'll use long M6 bolts. I couldn't decide the best option. Screwing them to fit may be easier, but there's always some looseness in that, so the blots will slide instead and use two nuts, one each side to exactly clamp it into place. There are 4 bolts for the 2 tracks, so I expect setting up will take some time, but many jigs and tables like this take time to set up.
The wood parts are cut:
1x 12mm MDF base, 280x500m.
2x 15x15mm pine track lengths, 400mm.
2x 36x21mm pine lengths, 400mm.
2x 70x15mm pine lengths for the router shelf, 230mm (this doesn't extend the full 400mm length of the track, only needs to be long enough to hold the router (or future tool) cradle. 230mm is generous, only 146mm is actually used here.
1x 6mm MDF plate for the router cradle, 252x146mm, with hole cut to exact fit the router base plate.
2x 15x15mm pine lengths for the cradle top/bottom edges, 210mm.
2x 46x15mm pine lengths for the cradle sides. These are wider than 15mm to fit the bolts which will make this cradle removable (you can glimpse the cradle so far in the top of the third photo).
Plus:
10x draw casters/rollers.
4x long M6 bolts.
And several nuts, rivnuts, and screws. Much will be glued to an exact place first, then drilled and screwed for extra strength.
I may need a vertical roller or two to gently press the wood down, but this may be overkill. There's room in the design for some.
