Dan's Hobbies » router

A simple push stick

Dan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:08:53 +0000

I’m in between big projects, so I’ve been keeping my self busy with little shop maintenance projects. Monday night I cleaned every saw blade I owned. While waiting for a particularly nasty blade to loosen up, I looked over at my saw and realized that I really didn’t like my push stick; so I decided to make a new one. After a little tinkering in Sketchup & an evening in the shop I came up with what you see below. It’s made from 3/4″ Baltic birch, and is roughly 15″ long by 8″ tall . I’ve played with it a little bit and I like it a lot better than my old one. The long base creates a large gripping surface, which does an excellent job of keeping the stock tight to the fence.

Router Table (wrap-up)

Dan — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:55:41 +0000

It’s finally done…

When I first started this project, I thought I would be done in a month. Now 6 months later, I don’t know where all the time went. I lost a week to a neck injury, but other than that I’ve worked on this project 10 to 15 hours every week. Either I work a lot slower than I think I do, or Norm has some magic tool to warp time.

All kidding aside, I’m really pleased with the results. I’ve gained additional storage space (always a plus in a small shop), and a valuable tool that I’m sure will be make many of my future projects much easier and pleasurable. And now it’s time for the obligatory final photos.

Router Table (Pt. 14)

Dan — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:02:29 +0000

Construction is finally done. Ok, It’s not completely done, but finishing and electrical will be a piece of cake compared to construction of the cabinet. I won’t be able to do any finishing this weekend, but hopefully by the end of next week This project will be complete, so I can move onto some simpler projects.

Router Table (Pt. 13)

Dan — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:33:27 +0000

I haven’t had much time to work in the shop over the last two weeks, but I’ve made some progress, I’ve managed to finish off the top & I’m partway done with the fence. Hopefully by this weekend I will have the fence done, and be ready to apply a finish.

Router Table (Pt. 12)

Dan — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 04:50:54 +0000

Last time, I demonstrated how to make templates for routing the recess for a lift plate. In this post, I’ll demonstrate how to use those templates to rout the recess.

Step one – Align the through hole template, and drill a starter hole all the way through the top. To ensure good alignment, I clamped a jointed 2×4 perpendicular to the front of the top, this gave me two good edges to reference the templates off of.

Step two – Use a pattern bit, to trace out the through hole. In order to get a clean cut, I’d recommend taking several passes, lowering the bit an 1/8″ – 1/4″ after each pass. Depending on the length of your bit, you can remove the template after a few passes, and reference off the side of the slot you just routed.

Step three – After routing as deep as you can with the pattern bit, secure the recess template to the top and rout out the recess.

Step four - Depending on how thick your top is, you might be able to skip this step. My top is 2-1/4″ thick, so in order to completely rout out the through hole, I had to flip the top, and use a flush trim bit, to remove the last little bit of material.

Step five – Grab a broom, and start cleaning up all the MDF dust.