Routers and CNCs

Whether you use a router made long before you were born, like the 1950s Stanley or one of the technologically advanced models built today, either machine can perform a range of essential woodworking tasks that can’t be bested by any other power tool. If you’re a woodworking novice, I’ll go so far as to say it should rank near the top of your “short list” of tools to buy first, even ahead of a table saw — routers are that useful.

To save a bit of money and get more use out of his workbench, the author constructed his own quick and easy router table. A router table doesn’t have to cost a fortune or weigh a ton to deliver professional results. My version’s 1" thick top doesn’t even require a cabinet base or legset. It simply clamps to my workbench. The project features an adjustable split fence with dust collection, plus a router lift made from ordinary home-center hardware. By removing three pairs of carriage bolts and wingnuts, I can remove the lift, router and fence easily for convenient storage.

Putting together your own cribbage board project is a good use of a lot of different workshop talents, and the end result can be almost as fun as making it. During those long, cold winters I spent growing up along the shores of Lake Vermilion in the far north of Minnesota, one of the ways that we wiled away the long dark evenings was playing cribbage.

For those who like to work with their hands and build things, A router table is one of the most useful and versatile additions you can make to your shop. With the router mounted securely in a table, both of your hands are free for maximum workpiece control during the cut. That extra control makes some routing operations much easier – routing grooves or edge profiles, for example.

Using the the depth probe on a set of calipers can help you set the height on your blades and router bits. A dial caliper takes precise inside and outside measurements, but the depth probe on the end can also help you set exact blade and bit heights.

V-groove board is a decorative panel board similar to beadboard. It features chamfered edges that form a v-groove between each board. The v-groove creates a nice shadow line. You can purchase special router bit sets that will cut the tongue and groove joint and the v-groove in a single pass on each board, but you can also make these boards using more common router bits.

A router guide collar is a useful accessory that threads onto a router base and guides the router along a pattern or template. The one safety concern with guide collars is that they can loosen and possibly fall off, causing damage to your work or maybe an injury. You can make sure that your guide collar won't loosen by using PTFE ahead tape (also called teflon tape) to wrap around the treads. You can find this special tape in the plumbing section of most hardware stores.

A stopped dado or groove is a cut that does not run all the way through a work piece. Making stopped dado or groove cuts can be tricky because you can't see the bit. The trick is to make marks on the router table to show where the router bit is located and make marks on the work piece to show where to start or stop cutting. A technique called a drop cut is used to start the cut. A drop cut is similar to a plunge cut, but instead of plunging the bit into the work piece, the work piece is lowered onto the bit.