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Router Table Fence.

3794 Views 18 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  TenGees
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I am slowly getting my router table done, thought I must confess it is mostly used as somewhere to put things on and buried.


I am now up to the stage of making the fence, I was thinking about buying all the parts, when I remembered this POS that has been sitting around and getting in the way for a long time.

I am looking for ideas of how to use parts from it to make my fence.

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I'm all for saving a dollar but the time spent trying to piece something together out of it? It looks like it ways 25 pounds and I don't know if its worth your time. You will have to buy parts to complete it so I would likely buy pieces that go together for a fence.

To answer your question I would strip it down a bit and get a better look how it is built and get an idea of how to use what where. If the fence is straight that's a start.
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I think your first assessment of that piece is correct. Here are several diagrams of a shop made fence. It's pretty easy to make one, although to cut the grooves for the split front pieces you'll need a temporary fence. You can clamp a very straight 2x4 piece to the table for that. You may be able to use a few of your star knobs.

Most of the time a fence can most easily adjusted if you fix one end, and only move the other end. Consider drilling a hole through the left end of the fence and into the table top. Use a metal peg to hold it in place and clamp the other end. For the vast majority of routing jobs, this will make it very easy to adjust depth of cut. You can make a number of passes, then when you get the final cut, mark the edge of the fence on the table. Then you know the final cut for all the pieces you're working on. Here are drawings and a picture of several shop made fences. Pick one, or combine different features. Make it from the flattest piece of Baltic Birch ply you can find. If you can't find the 5z5 foot Baltic birch, find a really flat piece of ply with as many layers as you can find.
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It's hard to tell from here but that looks like it could be quite useful to me. It seems it was intended to be fastened to the table through the 2 slots. The faces look adjustable in 2 ways with lock screws. Not sure what the 2 bent bars are for. Maybe some type of hold-down or guard.

You'll have to decide where to put the mounting screws (or nuts) into the table in a way that the fence can be adjusted to bury the bit at its frontmost setting and still be able to move the fence back behind the bit. It looks like knobs would be nice for that - choose some that you have enough clearance for your fingers.

Upper dust collection and feather boards would be nice. Those are things that might need some thinking. New face boards with T-slots might be a consideration for feather boards, guards or stops...

I wish that I had something like that to start a new fence with.
This photo I got from the internet, is what I want to do, I dont have the room in my incredable shrinking shed to have a stand alone router table.
The table folds down when not in use.

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I live in the centre of Aust, the nearest woodworking shop is 2500 km (1555 miles) away. We dont have the varity that you do in North America.

I like his fence the blue Aliminium angle, but it doesnt seems to be advailable in Aust.:cry:
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I bought this table top from the Incra dealer in Aust, it was suppost to have the two tracks for the fence to attach where the red box is.


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Heres some photos of the fence striped down.
The last photo is what I thought will be useable for the new fence.

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Unfortunaly Baltic Birch ply is not advailable here, we only get construction ply here which is never straight always buckled and warped.

The 2 bent bars are for featherboards, a real crap design.
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Unfortunaly Baltic Birch ply is not advailable here, we only get construction ply here which is never straight always buckled and warped.

The 2 bent bars are for featherboards, a real crap design.
I would throw it up on the table and make it work!. Figure out how to have an adjustable split fence, how to add feather boards and make something for a vacuum hose to fit in and I would clamp the finished fence to your table saw fence for easy adjustments. Depending on the size of what you are routing you can have the fence on one side or the other of the plate.
Because you have slots in those fence supports, you don't need tracks to hold the fence. Only two knobs need to screw through those slots into the table. As I mentioned earlier, you'll have to figure out where to put them so that the fence will travel past the the bit in front at one extreme and then back behind the bit at the other.

One problem with a router in your table saw, that would irritate me, is that you have to remove the router fence to be able to fully use the saw. I would think about putting 4 legs on it so you can just pull the table out of there when needed.

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This is my router table. The fence can be as simple as a piece of HDPE clamped to the table.

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This photo I got from the internet, is what I want to do, I dont have the room in my incredable shrinking shed to have a stand alone router table.
The table folds down when not in use.

View attachment 399379

I live in the centre of Aust, the nearest woodworking shop is 2500 km (1555 miles) away. We dont have the varity that you do in North America.

I like his fence the blue Aliminium angle, but it doesnt seems to be advailable in Aust.:cry:
2500 kms. from the nearest shop! That's quite a drive for a Sunday afternoon. Better not forget your list!
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Here is the simplist fence I've ever seen. Construction grade lumber either hand planed flat, or sanded on the bottom as flat as you can get it. Use a saw to cut out the center gap, your router to hollow out the path from bit to dust extraction. With any router, you will need dust extraction. And you must sweep away all sawdust on the table so it doesn't get underneath your workpiece. It doesn't take much sawdust to destroy the accuracy of your cut.

You could probably add a piece just above the front to give you height, but if you do, make sure it is exactly 90 degrees from the body of this fence. Support it with some square cut pieces or brackets.

if you want an aluminum T track on front, cut a 3/4 groove, 3/8ths deep for standard US T track. It screws into place so if you build a better fence, you can just move it over. My suggestion to fix one end in place, and pivot the other end to adjust depth of cut, still applies.

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et it.
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Thanks for your replies, I have been thinking about this while I should be working, when I remembered a table I built for my drill press years ago.

I found this pic on the internet, I have a a piece of the ali profile for the base.
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What is the minium hight and width for the fence?
If I attach the split fence from the old original one posted above to this profile, I have got the dust port from the drill press table.
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4 of these, any thing else to think about.

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Just had a look and found the drill press table fence.

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What I hate about MDF note how it warpes in the middle.:mad:
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That would suffice. Just clamp it to the table as I have shown...
2500 kms. from the nearest shop! That's quite a drive for a Sunday afternoon. Better not forget your list!
Do you live on a sheep station?
That would suffice. Just clamp it to the table as I have shown...
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I think the first fence is much better and the second one would need slots or T-bars for mounting. On the first one just close off the back of the opening in the middle to add the hose port.
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