Is granite a good router table top?

Carol Reed said:

Right. If you insist on the granite, then support the miter slot by epoxying on a 3/4" thick piece of granite.

Some thoughts about this. It seems to me that granite brings more negatives to this than positives. How flat and how thick is this stuff? What kind of infrastructure do you plan under this thing? The granite countertops I've seen are fully supported by a substrate. They are susceptible to fracturing under relatively slight impacts. There is no need for them to be dead flat in this application. And weight can become an issue as well.

The only thing a router table MUST be is flat and REMAIN flat. The reason is that the table top is a reference surface relative to the bit. The best use for a router table is for routing pieces that are too small to support the base of the router when routing. However, the reality is that most use the router table and router as a shaper. Therefor choose a top material that is flat and support it underneath so it remains that way.

With regard to miter slots, consider this. A round cutter like a router bit has no need to pass the material parallel to it because there is no parallel with a circle. A saw blade is a linear cutter and material has to be presented to it at one angle only. A miter slot parallel with the blade is useful, even necessary. Not true with a round cutter.

One more thought, just because there are large router tables, miter slots in router tables, and drop in router bases, doesn't mean that those are the best idea. The thinking we bring to the router and its use is too often lock step with linear cutters like saws. And that can complicate the use of the router and make things unnecessarily difficult, even unsafe, and hugely frustrating.

Just a couple of centavos from the Router Lady (retired).

For more info, come to Burning Wood at Brent's in Nevada in June. Or track down a copy of my book, Router Joinery Workshop. It was printed 10 years ago but the principles of operation don't change.

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larry merlau said:

well, that book has way more than a hundred dollars of tips and tricks in it, but t a used one has the same info if it has all the pages i find it hard to believe there any new ones out there after ten years of time passed from writting it???

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larry merlau said:

did you ask the guy to cut you a hole in it? rather than you doing the hole? i think you are gonna be surprised when you try to cut granite with your router.. i would have paid the guy to do it..

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Rich Soby said:

Sorry, I tend to think from the commercial side and independent machines it didnt occur to me the dual role of ts extension. That being the case how does your table saw sit? legs? cabinet saw? That granite slab is going to be heavy and you will definitely need to more than counterbalance it especially once you start running stock through and lean into a cut. you definitely (and obviously) dont want the ts to tip over while your running a cut. Just as an aside, I have the delta 5hp shaper with a 1hp 4 wheel power feeder mounted to it. that powerfeeder is probably close in weight to your granite slab. its on a mobile base and if the powerfeeder is not sitting right over the table when I move my shaper its enough to throw the balance off and tip it. not fun trying to stop 500 plus pounds from going over...

Also, regarding the milling. you may want to at least take the top to a granite fabricator in your area along with what you want milled and get an estimate. you may find it can be done fairly inexpensively and they have all the set ups they need to do it for you. trying to get that miter slot smooth and precise with a skill saw isnt going to be the easy feat you may think. that truly needs to be routed to get the precision depth and width.

Im not trying to be a buzzkill here, just point out some of the pitfalls I see the possibility of you encountering.

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