That is a great lift! My partner has it on his table matched with a Incra Fence.

I like that table concept you have there too!

 

Nice setup. Santa was very cooperative.

 

Thanks ...... and yes he was.

You know I'm new here, I dont know how far off topic is too far here, but I wanted to also tell you about a semi-router related upgrade I made just before Christmas.

First off, lemme just say I am not anywhere close to being what you would call a "Fine" Woodworker, I dont have the patience nor the inclination for high end joinery and rarely ever work with hardwood. I like building stuff and piddlin' around in the Shop I waited too long to build.

I do a large percentage of my routing with MDF. Which aside from it being rough on bits, throws a lot of very fine, perhaps harmful, dust.

Recently I Made A Gun Rack for a friend / coworker for his family hunting lodge. And man I spit a lot of fine MDF dust into my shop.

So what I want to tell you about was after that dust bowl I went and got me a whole shop air filter.

I looked around at the options and settled on a Alorair® Purecare 1350IG Air Filtration System and I am very happy with how quickly it clears the air in my relatively small shop.

So this Christmas Santa also brought me a PM2.5 Air Quality Sensor. Which I mounted to the air filter.

Which has helped me quantify the air quality in my shop.

When I was routing out the router table for the new lift the air quality in my shop shot up to 180 PM, and this filter brought it back down to safe levels in a couple of minutes. Before most of that dust could settle into every nook and cranny in the shop.

Anyway, I just thought that was something interesting to share in a community of Routers who might not otherwise have a good dust collection system.

...... btw, I love the intuitive commenting system here.

 

I had gotten the JessEm last year for Christmas. Love how smooth it operates. Anyway, had things put a way for a few months, just started back with a project that needed the router table. And to my dismay, the lift was really stiff to operate. Figured it got some corrosion or too much dust in it. Then it hit me. I forgot to turn the lock setting prior to operating the lift. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Anyway no apparent damage, and it is still working great.

 

Hi, I am big on dust hazards. That ultra fine sawdust, especially from mdf, does not come out of the lungs. It is insidious. I would never cut mdf inside my shop. That's an outdoor project, and I wear a mask as well. I have breathing problems (side effect of chemo and radiation a decade or so ago), and am on oxygen much of the time. So I'm very aware of it. Your next purchase ought to include a strong dust collection system. A 4 inch system will set you back, and the connectors and hoses are a pain (stick with one brand), but it is about your lungs. You only get one pair. Your wife should be aware of the hazard so she gets behind getting a DC setup. There are many brands that have a high air flow, a cyclone separator and a bin for chip collection, and a bag or container for captured sawdust. For light duty,a 2.5 inch system like the one below, is OK, but if you get serious and get more tools (is it a hobby or addiction?), a 4 inch system is better. Here's the 2.5 inch version, The 4 inch is similar but larger. The small one is affordable.

 

You will like the JessEm lifter. I love mine. Once you instal and test a bit, you can often get spot-on by just comparing where the bit is then cutting and going up or down the 64s or 32s which you can scale off the dial on the adjustment plate.

 

Welcome to the forum @snjglassranch

 

"You know I'm new here, I dont know how far off topic ..."

Dust collection and air filtration are very important topics. I agree with what Tom said about the hazards of milling MDF. Plywood is also bad. The particle size from milling MDF and plywood is very small and requires special filters to capture them.

Since dust collection is such an important topic, please start a separate thread so that dust collection does not get lost underneath a router lift post.

 

Welcome @snjglassranch. You're right on about the ability to work in as small as 1/64ths. So much easier with a lift.