Router Height Adjustment

Chris Schwarz from Popular Woodworking just posted a list of "10 Tool Features that Frustrate Me".  It is a good, quick read.  You should check it out.

I was surprised to see one of my favorite woodworking tools, the router, mentioned twice!  The router is the most versatile tool in your wood shop, thanks in large part to the variety of router bits that are available, yet it still can frustrate people.  The two instances Chris sites are collet locks on routers and router table fences that offset for jointing applications.  What are your thoughts on this?


Tell us how else your woodworking router or router table and fence frustrate you.  Maybe we can come up with a way to make it better for you.  Is router height adjustment still an issue for you?  Do you constantly have issues setting up or using your router table system?  Are there specific router accessories that drive you crazy?  And if so, why?

Don't forget, we are "The World's Router Bit Source" with over 2,000 router bits and router bits sets so we have a vested interest in your answers.  We want to make your shop a better place for you to work, and we want to make your router indispensable! 

Mike, one of our Eagle woodworking guru's writes:


The Christmas season found many woodworkers looking for gifty projects. One type of project that was very popular this year was making bowls and trays using a router and various templates.

Besides the standard tray and bowl templates, there were also holiday oriented templates such as a Snow Man, Christmas Stocking and a Christmas Tree.

              

I too thought this to be a good project, but I wanted something different than the templates that were available, so I decided I would make my own.

I wanted to keep it simple since I planned on making ten trays. I also had some 5/4 wide cherry stock and did not want to do a bunch of Glue ups. I was in the shop one day thinking about size and noticed the template I had used to cut the opening in my router table top for my router height adjustment lift. It was the perfect size!

The beauty of this template was that is featured straight sides that could be ripped on the table saw to get the width of the tray sides after it was hollowed out using my routers bits.

Templates, patterns and router jigs are great time savers but don't let them limit your imagination. It’s easy to make your own for whatever shape you desire.

Following are some photos of the sanding supplies and finishing process I used after drilling out and routing the hollowed out part of the tray.
 

I first used the direct drive setting on the Festool Rotex sander to smooth out the bottom of the tray and clean up the radius corners.

 




The final sanding was done with  the Festool rectangular random orbit sander so I could get into the corners better.

The inside radius edges were done with the Fein Multimaster with the profile sanding attachment.

 

To speed things up while applying the finish I used Painters Pyramids so I could do both sides at once.

 
And here is the final batch of nine trays. My kids loved them and it didn't take me all month to make them!

I decided to make the rockers first since that appeared to be the most challenging.  There are two layers laminated together, with the layers made up of 4 or 5 sections.  These were all cut at 22 ½ degrees which is one of the standard stops in the Incra miter gauges that I used. 

My son made a full size plot of the AutoCAD drawing for me and I laid out the rocker to make sure they were the right size and shape to cut out a smooth curve.  I then tried to match the grain and the color between segments as best I could, marked their relative position, and connected them using one of the Kreg pocket hole jigs and screws.

Once connected together, I could cut a smooth curve using one of Eagle America's router jigs, the large Casper Tools circle guide.  I made several cuts lowering the router height adjustment 1/4” on each successive swing.

I got a call one Thursday evening to go over to my in-laws for dinner. When my wife and I arrived, we sat down and had a nice meal. During the meal, my wife's aunt, Teresa, mentioned that she wanted to add kitchen cabinets on an open wall in her kitchen. The problem was, she could not find anything to match her existing cabinets. My wife immediately volunteered me for the job knowing I have all kinds of cabinet making tools!

After dinner, we stopped by Teresa's house and I took a few measurements, made a few drawings and made sure that Teresa was happy with the design.

The following Friday evening, I figured out what the total cost for the job would be and called Teresa to see if it was acceptable. She gave me her approval and I was off and running.

Early Saturday morning I was at the lumber yard hand selecting my material and by noon, I was back in my shop cutting everything to size.


Kreg pocket hole jigs have to be one to the best woodworking accessories you could have in your shop. I used it to build the cabinet's carcases and face frames all within a hour.

I used my woodworking router table with Eagle America's stile and rail bits to make the door and drawer frames and a 3-wing raised panel bit for the panels. It really helps to have some type of router height adjustment on your router table. I use a Jessem Master Lift and love it!

The edges of the door frames were finished using Eagle America's roundover bits. I figured I could use this project to showcase my talents as well as some of the cool cabinet hardware that is on the market so I used ball bearing drawer slides with Blum Blumotion accessories.

This post is based on a blog comment we received from seven7dog.

"One tool missing in my shop is a shaper. How necessary is this tool?"

•     Heavy weight / cast iron table top = more stability
•     More powerful motors
•     New models can use shaper cutters or router bits
•     Slower operating speeds = less chance for burning

•     Heavy weight = less mobility
•     Initial cost can be higher
•     Less specialty profiles for shaper cutters compared to router bits
•     Shaper Cutters can be expensive