DONALD

I'm looking at an old Craftsman table and the only way I see is to grind that rib out enough to allow your base to fit flat against the bottom of the table. If the fence on your C table is as bad as the one I have it ain't worth it. Either build your own or buy.

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reible

I happen to have two old Craftsman router tables. One is back from the mid-70's and the "new" one is from the later 90's. Since I don't know what model we are talking about I decide to take a look at my mid 90's one to see what I could learn.

I removed the router and then measured the thickness of the table top from where the router mounts to the top of the table. On mine it is right on 7/16". I then plunged the router and found that it comes flush with the base of the router.

I now went to the 1/4" bits I have and measured the shortest one I have. This turned out to be a dovetail bit that measured 1 1/2" long. Most of the bits came in the 2 1/2" range except of a few that were more like 2", I also found a few that reached 2 3/4" including the bearing.

I went to my drawing program and made a sketch of what my router would look like when mounted with the shortest bit (1 1/2") If you want take a look at the attachment.

With 3/4" of bit in the chuck I have 3/4" bit extending up. If the router table is 7/16" thick that leaves 5/16 above the table. but with bits in the 2 1/2" range you have a good amount of bit exposed, even after putting more of the bit into the chuck.

The amount of plunge range has nothing to do with this side of the problem.

Now can someone review what I have done and see if I'm missing some importain point here?

Ed

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Mike

The Craftsman router tables are designed to work with Craftsman routers. They are very limited in their abilities. The fence's are not acurate, there is no provision for dust collection, and its difficult at best to clamp anything to them. The exception to this is the latest version which uses a mounting plate for the router, and is in fact a carbon copy of the OEM's table but priced a bit less and flying a Craftsman color scheme. I think you will find the best use of the older Craftsman tables is as step stools. There are so many really nice designs for tables, why not build your own using the plans which best fit your space and budget requirements? Oak Park, Rockler, Woodcraft all sell components and plans or ready to use tables. Check out the plans from Shopnotes, Woodsmith... with so many choices you are bound to find the perfect set up for your needs.