Router Table Help

Jim you can fix a sacrificial fence to the front of your fence, one that only lets the cutter through and that will be better as James is correct when he says the hole is too large as you show it, what I normally do is that I mover the fence into the sacrificial fence and just past the point where you will run your work and then back it off a little to the correct fence setting as that will give a very small amount of clearance for the cutter and there will be the smallest gap around the cutter, if you are going to run a smaller piece then you can attach it to something bigger and that will be better and you also need to use a push block, there are also several ways that you can use pressure blocks to hold your work against the fence, these feather boards are a good way to do that and you can make them yourself if you don't want to buy commercial ones, about the cutter, every collet has a height and when you push the cutter into it then the cutter does stick through the collect into open space under the collet, so at a minimum then the cutter has to be inserted into the collet past the height of the collet, that will be enough, I often don't push them all the way in as some extra height can be handy and some routers come with a plug that is intended to go under the cutter to fill the air space however I don't use them, if you are thinking of only inserting it part of the way or half way into the collet itself to get more cutter height then 'don't' as the router will be up around 22000 rpm and you really don't want it to come out at that speed, routing end grain can be a problem, if you burn the wood then your cutter is not sharp enough or not good enough in it's quality, routing end grain need to be at a steady pace past the cutter, if you slow down then that also can cause burning, I get the impression that you are a beginner so I suggest that you run some test pieces before you put your work on the cutter, when you are happy with the result on the test items then run you work piece, keep your fingers clear as router speed will take them off if you stray near the cutter, wear hearing and eye protection and keep your work area clean. NGM

The design of the fence pictured is curious. I've never really seen a router fence with a taper cut out of it at the top like that, so I was trying to figure out the why of that. I really couldn't picture in my head any use or advantage to that. Most router or shaper fences are flat faced. If flat faced, then you can slide the work along it. When flat faced, you could put sacrificial or curtain fences onto it.

I thought about your question. I looked at your router table. I think Neville had the best answer... but I wanted to add to his.

Neville described a sacrificial fence. A curtain fence is single layer two pieces that meet in the middle of the fence. I usually cut that edge at 45 degree miters and place the miters toward the rear (towards the fence and bit). You can adjust it close to the bit, so that with whatever sized bit you use, you can shield how much of the bit is exposed. I use clamps, where some use slots with bolts to hold these in place and be able to remain adjustable.

Another thing not mentioned was the use of jigs. Holding small pieces of work, especially while trying to tool end grain is done better and safer with the use of jigs... Where you can precisely and safely hold the workpiece by holding onto something bigger that is holding the workpiece in place.

You didn't say what you were trying to route into endgrain. The tooling profiles that are most common in endgrain would be edge profiles, grooving, or joining profiles. On joining profiles (joints), then you split off from edge profile type cut joints that include locking joints... to finger joints and dovetails.

On the last two, they are cut differently, using different techniques and different jigs. They are cut into endgrain perpendicular to the workpiece, instead of along it's length, so it does not slide along the fence... but rather is held onto an auxiliary fence (a jig) that holds the piece perpendicular the to fence, as you slide that jig along the fence... Note that some jigs for this don't use the fence and are exceptions to that, but the principles of movement are the same.

It might help if you mentioned what you are trying to cut into the endgrain, so that people can recommend how safest to go about that.