Introduction: DIY Router Table

By
About: I am a Senior in college studying Mechanical Engineering. My interests include woodworking, 3D printing, electronics and building computers

I just bought a new Craftsman router and was wanting a router table to mount it in and decided to build my own.

Some of the features I wanted were

  • Adjustable fence
  • Dust Collection
  • Switch to control router and vacuum
  • Ease of access to router

Step 1: Design, Materials and Tools

I modeled my design in Solidworks so I had a set of plans to go off of. I designed the top and fence out of 3/4" plywood I had left over from another project and the legs are made out of 2x4 material.

  • The top dimensions came from the largest piece of plywood I had so you can change this to fit your needs.
  • The location of the mounting holes came from my router base and my change depending on your router.
  • Size of dust collection hole in fence can be changed to fit your system.

Materials

  • 3/4" Plywood
  • ~5ft of 2x4
  • Wood Glue
  • 2 x Outlet Boxes
  • 1 x Switch and Cover
  • 1 x Outlet and Cover
  • ~16" of House Wire
  • 2 x Wire Nut
  • 2 x Wire Staples
  • Electrical plug (I used one off an old battery backup)
  • Assortment of screws from 1-1/2" to 2-1/2" (Used what I had laying around)
  • 3 x 10-32, 1" long Counter sink bolts for mounting router (Use suitable size for your router)
  • 2 x 1/4", 2-1/2" long Carriage Bolts
  • 2 x 1/4" washers
  • 2 x 1/4" Wing Nuts

Tools

  • Tape Measure
  • Chop Saw
  • Table Saw
  • Drill
  • Drill/Drive Bits
  • Router
  • 1/4 Router Bit
  • Nail Gun (Optional, used to nail glued pieces so as not to have to wait for them to dry)
  • Taper Jig for table saw
  • Sand Paper
  • Outlet Tester (Optional but Recommended)

Step 2: Top

  1. Cut top to desired size, for me this was the size of a piece I had laying around
  2. Layout holes for mounting router, I traced the removable plastic plate from my router base to locate my holes
  3. Layout slots for movable fence from the drawing
  4. Center punch all holes and ends of slots
  5. Pilot drill all holes
  6. Drill 3/16" holes for mounting router
  7. Counter sink holes
  8. Drill 1-1/2" hole for router spindle
  9. Drill 1/4" holes for ends of slots
  10. Set router edge guide to 6" and router slots with 1/4" Bit
  11. Sand all edges

Step 3: Legs

Legs are designed to use a single 12" piece of 2x4 for each leg and then a 12" piece ripped down center for the cross bars.

  1. Cut 5, 12" sections of 2x4 (I cut 6 just in case I messed one up)
  2. Layout angled cut on 4 pieces
  3. Set up taper jig to cut correct angle
  4. Cut legs
  5. Layout legs to glue them together, make sure that you have 2 sets that mirror each other to make up each side of the legs
  6. Start screws in the larger side then apply glue to smaller piece, flush the top of the 2 and drive the screws in
  7. Repeat step 6 for all 4 legs
  8. Sand all edges
  9. Rip one of the remaining 12" pieces of 2x4 down the center, these will be the cross bars
  10. Sand all edges
  11. Glue and screw together the 2 mirrored legs with a cross bar as shown in the pictures
  12. Repeat step 9 for the other set of legs
  13. Attach the 2 sets of legs to the top, 2" in from the top edge on all sides

Step 4: Fence

  1. Cut an at least 7-1/8" wide piece of plywood to the same length as the top (In my case 22-1/2")
  2. Rip a 3" and 4" section
  3. Layout the cutout section on both the front and bottom pieces of the fence and the holes on the bottom piece
  4. Cut sections out, I used a miter gauge and cut them on the table saw but a jig saw or hand saw would work
  5. Center punch, pilot drill and 1/4" drill holes in bottom piece
  6. Sand edges
  7. Glue and screw the front to the bottom section with the 4" section vertical
  8. Cutout pieces for dust collection from drawings
  9. Test fit all pieces, trim if necessary, sand all edges
  10. Glue angled side pieces and nail, otherwise clamp and wait to dry
  11. Glue top making sure to get a good bead of glue on all contacting surfaces to create a good seal and nail into the angle pieces, otherwise clamp and wait to dry.
  12. Center top extension, glue, clamp and wait to dry
  13. Drill hole for dust collection hose (In my case 1-1/2")

Step 5: Electrical

I wanted my switch to sit vertical so I cut an angle piece (about 8 deg angle) to put between the box and the leg, if you don't mind the switch being tilted you can omit this step.

  1. Pilot drill then use 3/8" drill to drill hole in top of one box
  2. Mount switch box to front using included nails
  3. Mount box with hole drilled in top to the back leg as shown in pictures using screws
  4. Run wire from switch box to outlet box
  5. Wire hot (Black) to brass screw, neutral (White) to silver screw and the ground to the green screw
  6. Run outlet chord into switch box
  7. Wire hot (Black) in to bottom of switch and hot out to the top, use jumper to wire ground in as seen in picture and wire neutrals (White) together
  8. Screw outlet and switch into boxes and attach cover plates
  9. (Optional but recommended) Use Outlet tester to make sure everything is wired correctly and you wont ruin any equipment plugged in or shock yourself when using it.

Step 6: Conclusion and Recomendation

Overall I liked the way it came out and it works good for my use, if you have any comments or sugestions please feel free to post them.

A few things I would add or change would be:

  • Add slots to front of fence to allow adjustable auxiliary fences to be used on different router bits
  • Add slot to front of table to allow a bolt to cut circles with
  • Miter gauge slot

Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this Instructable please consider voting for it in the woodworking contest, thank you and have a nice day.

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