Porter Cable 890 surgery

Last night my router table router, under went surgery to remove some growths that where preventing it from doing it’s job properly. When I made the inserts for my router lift, the spindle lock prevented the router from rising high enough for above the table bit changes. While not the end of the world, it was definitely annoying. Since I had some time to kill last night, I decided to rectify the problem. I taped off the bottom of the router to keep filings out of the hosing, and went to town with a mill file. After about 20 minutes, my biceps burned, and I had a nice pile of filings.

Inserts & recycling

Today was day three of my inserts project, and I went “green” by recycling my face plate jig. I bored out the center of the jig, so that  it was a tight fit around the shoulder on the bottom of the inserts.The new jig made drilling the mounting holes very simple after the initial set up, as it acted as a pore mans rotary table. Enjoy the pics, and check back tomorrow to see the finished inserts.

lift inserts day two

It doesn’t look like much, but I made a lot of progress today, I was able to thickness all three of the insert blanks, as well as turn the mounting lip. It took about 2 hours to complete, and filled a 5 gallon bucket with chips, but it was a simple, an pleasurable task. I probably have two evenings worth of work left to do, and then one evening of unpleasantness (cleaning the shop). However when I’m done, I will have insert’s that last a life time, and that’s well worth the effort.

Custom Bench Dog lift inserts

I’ve had My Bench dog lift for a couple month now, and it has been a pleasure to use. The only disappointment, Ive had with the lift, is the quality of the inserts. I have a newer model lift, that was produced by bench dog after it was purchased by Rockler (can’t remember where I read this). The old version had stainless steel or aluminum inserts, that could be flushed with the top of the lift using set screws. The new inserts are made from some type of plastic, that doesn’t really seem stiff enough for the gap it spans.

Since my next project is going to involve working with some small boards, I decided now was the time to make some stout inserts. step one was to make a jig to fasten the blanks to the faceplate. To make the jig, I cut a piece of aluminum plate to size, and then taped it so it could be bolted to the faceplate. Next I faced 1/8″ off the surface, leaving a 1/2″ diameter nub in the center. The final step was to tap the nub for a 1/4-20 bold that would be used to hold the blanks to the jig.

The blanks are exceptionally simple to make; all I had to do was cut some plate to slightly bigger than the diameter I needed, and then drill a 1/2″ hole threw the center. Then all that was left to do, was mount them to the jig and turn them to the proper diameter. Tomorrow night I’m going to turn the blanks to the proper thickness, and turn the lip on them.

It’s kind of a shame that I’m going to turn most of  blanks into chips, but what the hell, the plate they’re made from was just taking up space in the shop anyway.

Router circle jig

For my next project I’m going to make some raised dog dishes, and that requires me to make some decent sized holes to mount the dishes in. I thought I would be able to just run down to my local woodworking store and pick up a jig, but oh no. I must have the worst luck on the planet; every time I think something should be easy, it ends up becoming a big ordeal. But I digress.

The jigs available locally fall into 2 categories: template & arm style. The template style jigs are usually for circles 4″ in diameter or smaller, and the arm style are for circles 7″ to 8″ and larger. I need to make circles that are roughly 6″ in diameter. Thus, instead of ordering a jig and waiting a week for it to be delivered, I made one last night.

I made it from some scrap 1/4″ thick Lexan, I had leftover from my router table build.  The only unpleasant task involved in its construction, was having to turn off the drill press after every hole, and clean the melted material out of the bits flutes. As it is now, I can make holes from 4 to 14 inches in diameter in quarter inch intervals.