Router Table System

Last winter, my husband Mike wanted to try his hand at cabinet making. He looked at so many different cabinet plans but could not find something to build. 

Space is a premium in our small woodworking shop so when he asked for a woodworking router table system, a bench top router table was the best solution.

Eagle America offers two bench top router table systems.

Kreg Router Table                  or  a             Freud Router Table

Yes, these are smaller woodworking router table systems but they get the job done!


Now, back to cabinet plans. Mike never found "the one" perfect cabinet plan to build so he designed his own. 


Mike was able to use his stile and rail bits and many of his other Eagle router bits for his cabinet project. While he was building the cabinet, it was exciting to see the majority of his woodworking clamps being used all at once. 


In the end the cabinet he made will become a family treasure. 


Not bad for a first effort.

I had a customer call the other day and the Eagle America catalog he used to order from was a catalog he borrowed from his father, that is not that unusual but the catalog was from 2000.  He is not the first customer to order from one of our catalogs from several years ago. I’ve asked "Why do you keep them so long" they usually say they keep it for reference. They would see a woodworking accessory or router bits that they had not seen before. So they hold on to it for when they need that item.

Do you know we carry over 6000 different woodworking tools? We have everything from; router table systems, router bits and router bit sets, saw blades and saw blade accessories, woodworking clamps, sanding supplies, wood carving tools, Kreg pocket hole jigs…. and the list goes on.

A few years back we ran a promotional offer to see who had the oldest catalog and I believe we had multiple customers that supplied us with catalogs from the late 80's and early 90's.

  Yesterday's Catalog                                      Today's Catalog
                                 

Wow what a difference, so don’t be so quick to toss that old Eagle America catalog it just may be worth something in the future.

I ordered a 20” x 24” oil painting for our 50th wedding anniversary and needed to frame it.

I wanted to use some nice cherry that I have so I set out to create a simple frame that would complement the painting and not compete with it.

I chose a simple profile that was easily done on my router table system with two simple bits, a 45 degree chamfer bit and a basic rabbeting bit. 
 
After milling the profiles on my router table system, I cut the pieces to length with mitered ends.

After applying glue to all the joints, I used some woodworking clamps, specifically, a simple picture framing clamp that keeps everything nice and square. I did not use any fasteners because I planned on adding a simple corner spline. 

After the glue had cured, I cut a slot in each corner using a simple shop made jig and made 1 pass through the table saw.
 

The splines were made to match the thickness of the saw kerf. A little glue was added and the splines were tapped in. After the glue dried I trimmed the excess wood off with a flush trim saw and sanded them flush.

I found that one of the easiest ways to hold a picture into a frame is to use fender washers that overlap the inset picture. The washers are slightly countersunk using a forstner bit just slightly larger than the washer.



 

All in all, a successful little project!

• Do you still go to woodworking shows? 
• If so, how often do you go?
• How far are you willing to drive to go to them? 

You may have noticed that I like to scour the web for interesting woodworking articles.  Here is a great one that I read on Monday in the Augusta Chronicle about Danny Hill and his son Chad, two dedicated cabinet makers from Georgia.  Some of the highlights from the article for me were:

• His home and his shop are on the same piece of land, just like many of our Eagle Woodworking customers
• He has been doing it since 1961 and has never made the same kitchen twice!
• He doesn't do it for the money, it's all about making the people happy
• He says there's always something new to learn in woodworking.  "You could do any kind of wood work you want to for 500 years, and you're still going to only know a small percent of what you can do with a piece of wood. You never quit learning."

It was a great article about about a woodworking family!  It also made me think more about how we can help you make your own beautiful cabinets.  It is a lot easier to do than you think.

We have lots of woodworking tools and woodworking accessories that can help you get the job done right and it all starts with our world famous selection of Router Bits.  Router bits are the key component for building your raised panel cabinet doors.  We offer a very large selection of cabinet bits between our Eagle Router Bits (Made in the USA) and PriceCutter Router Bits (imported).  In the very near future you will actually be able to build your very own Cabinet Making Router Bit Sets on our site!  Combine those bits with a router table system such as the Kreg Router Table and you are good to go. 

The cabinet doors give your kitchen their distinctive look and feel but it is actually the boring old cabinet itself that holds everything together.  You can't have form without function!  Building the carcass for your cabinets has never been easier.  First you need one of your favorite table saw blades to cut your stock down to size.  We then suggest using one of our Kreg Pocket Hole Jigs to make assembling the cabinets as easy as 1-2-3.

Enough for now, I am sure I will write more about cabinet making tools in the near future.  Just know this, like Danny Hill says in the article that started this post, there's always something new to learn in woodworking.  Who knows, maybe for you this year that something is cabinet making.




 

• Making Bowls and Trays (pictured) with their router templates, router jigs and router bits
• Making Keepsake Boxes, often with Eagle router bits and a router table system of some kind.
• Picture Frames were also a very popular gift, given the flexibility and creativity that their favorite router and wood router bits provides them
• Pen Turning allowed people to make gifts for many people all at once, plus they made the perfect stocking stuffer. 
• Wood Carving Tools, especially a new Wood Carving Set, came in handy when making truly unque gifts

•     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

vs.