Frank Pellow
Member
- Messages
- 2,332
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Early in 2007 Rick and I both purchased inexpensive tops for router tables at Busy Bee Tools:
We both also bought Triton 2.25 hp routers and built cabinets to support the table tops and to house the routers. Here is a picture of mine:
Please observe that the fence is held in place by a two wooden clamping blocks, one at each end of the fence. These proved to be inadequate and the fence shifted when pushed. Rick dealt with this by also using a couple of quick clamps to hold the fence in position. I glued sandpaper strip underneath the table along both sides and this helped quite a bit –but when I really needed to be sure, I also need to use auxiliary clamps.
Yesterday, we got together at Rick’s place to make some improvements. The first thing that we did was to install two 10 inch strips of t-track near the edges on the back of our tables. In the photos below, Rick is attaching a template then routing one of the grooves in his table top:
We installed the t-track in the grooves using glue and screws, drilled holds through on the horizontal surface at the back of the fence and installed a cam locking mechanism for each track. Here Frank is tightening a cam lock:
We found that, with applying only very little pressure to the handles of the two cam locks, the fence held very solidly.
Next, we acted upon a suggestion by Mack Cameron, we next built a micro-adjust gizmo to fit into one the tracks. The micro-adjust is a short piece of aluminum bent at a right angle and fitted (1) with a knob to hold it in place on the t-track and (2) with a thumb screw threaded through the aluminum. The thumb screw is used to push against the wooden block screwed into the back of one end of the fence. This is best shown by pictures a couple of pictures:
In the first picture, the thumbscrew has not yet been threaded through the micro-adjust and the micro-adjust has not been tightened onto the track. In the next picture, the micro adjust is fastened in place on the t-track behind the end of the fence that we want to adjust and the thumb screw pushing against the wooden block in order to adjust the position of the fence.
Here is a picture of my table top with the modifications complete:
We both also bought Triton 2.25 hp routers and built cabinets to support the table tops and to house the routers. Here is a picture of mine:
Please observe that the fence is held in place by a two wooden clamping blocks, one at each end of the fence. These proved to be inadequate and the fence shifted when pushed. Rick dealt with this by also using a couple of quick clamps to hold the fence in position. I glued sandpaper strip underneath the table along both sides and this helped quite a bit –but when I really needed to be sure, I also need to use auxiliary clamps.
Yesterday, we got together at Rick’s place to make some improvements. The first thing that we did was to install two 10 inch strips of t-track near the edges on the back of our tables. In the photos below, Rick is attaching a template then routing one of the grooves in his table top:
We installed the t-track in the grooves using glue and screws, drilled holds through on the horizontal surface at the back of the fence and installed a cam locking mechanism for each track. Here Frank is tightening a cam lock:
We found that, with applying only very little pressure to the handles of the two cam locks, the fence held very solidly.
Next, we acted upon a suggestion by Mack Cameron, we next built a micro-adjust gizmo to fit into one the tracks. The micro-adjust is a short piece of aluminum bent at a right angle and fitted (1) with a knob to hold it in place on the t-track and (2) with a thumb screw threaded through the aluminum. The thumb screw is used to push against the wooden block screwed into the back of one end of the fence. This is best shown by pictures a couple of pictures:
In the first picture, the thumbscrew has not yet been threaded through the micro-adjust and the micro-adjust has not been tightened onto the track. In the next picture, the micro adjust is fastened in place on the t-track behind the end of the fence that we want to adjust and the thumb screw pushing against the wooden block in order to adjust the position of the fence.
Here is a picture of my table top with the modifications complete: