I bought my first router this week and absolutely love what I can now do. However, the fence I built is a VERY temporary fence (couple pieces of MDF screwed together with a hole where the bit sits) and I am looking to build a good fence in the near future. My friends have offered suggestions of both designs and materials but I would like to hear/see what you like in a router table fence.
It would be terrific if you would talk about what you like and don’t like about your fence, including materials and design. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so if you could include a picture of your fence, that would be terrific as well.
Thank you very much for helping out a beginning woodworker!
Replies
Here's some pictures of the fence i built. I currently just clamp it onto my Unisaw's Biesemeyer fence using a few 1.5 inch thick blocks i screwed onto the back of the fence that aren't pictured in these shots. The fence is made out of a good quality MDF so that its nice and heavy. Then the faces are made out of Melamine since I had some on hand to use at the time with T tracks glued in the backs to allow me to adjust the size of the openings. If I had it to do again i'd make the faces with a high pressure laminate on the faces instead so that the edges wouldn't chip up so bad. But other than that it works great. The face is about 8 or 9 inches tall so you can even do vertical panel raisers with it with plenty of support.
Edit: if you think this looks similar to the NYW plans its because i used them as a starting point :) Sorry to have ommited this earlier.
Edited 1/6/2004 10:50:11 AM ET by JDorn
JDorn,
This looks suspiciously like the NYW version. Are you sure you shouldn't have footnoted this?
TDF
Yeah mine is built of the NYW plans, i bought them a while back but then got a unisaw so I dropped the router in the extension wing instead of into a separate table. But I used the fence design as a starting point and altered it to clamp to my Biesemeyer fence insted of through slots in the table face.
I also changed the dimensions a bit, and altered the dust fittings since I couldn't find a plastic fitting like he used locally. But functionally it works like the NYW one, albeit with minor changes.
I like it cause its really heavy and sturdy. All in all its a pretty good design, but I did make an extra outfeed face for Jointing as well by putting laminate on the back of the piece to offset it from the infeed face 1/16th. And instead of using a bit to make the T-Track i put in metal tracks since that was all i could get my hands on at my local shop.
Edited 1/6/2004 10:46:49 AM ET by JDorn
I use the router fence from Jessem on a router table and top that I built. The router table plan I used is the one from New Yankee Workshop. I did modify its size to fit my needs.
However, with the plans for the table, come an excellent set of plans for a fence. If I were not using the Jessem, which I think is excellent, I would build the one in the plans.
Alan - planesaw
I highly recommend visiting Pat Warner's website http://www.patwarner.com/ . His router fence design is superior to any other I've seen. It's not difficult to build and will save you a fortune off of what you'd pay for a manufactured one of similiar quality.
I agree Willie. Pat has incredible information in his books and on his site. He is also a very nice person who is very supportive of those of us with lesser skills. He wrote an article in FWW within the last few years detailing the construction of his fence.Bill
ehrichweiss
Birch scraps laminated and took away anything that remainded that didn't look like a router fence. :>)
Regards...
sarge..jt
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
ehrichweiss,
I built the NYW version and really like it. Made out of MDF and faced with high pressure laminate.
TDF
Edited 1/5/2004 9:41:48 PM ET by Tom Ferreira
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