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Phil Huber, a senior editor for ShopNotes magazine details in this seminar all the steps necessary for building a sturdy set of drawers on a router table.

First, he’ll demonstrate how to build drawers using a specialized drawer joint bit in just two simple steps. Then, for those of us who choose not to buy the special bit, Phil will take us through the steps of building drawers with an ordinary 1/4″-dia. straight bit.

Get the Seminar Guide here: Building Drawers Using Drawer Joint Bits

 

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You can sharpen your woodworking skills with helpful tips and techniques from the editors of Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines. Get a FREE tip sent to your email address each week! Go to WoodworkingTips.com and sign up today.

Here’s last week’s tip from ShopNotes online editor Phil Huber:

My workshop shares space with the family car. So it’s important that all of my power tools be portable and take up as little space as possible. So I made the fold-up router table you see here.

I made a simple router table top and attached it to a pair of 2×4’s with screws. Then, after removing the top of an adjustable clamping table, I mounted the router table to the clamping table stand, as shown in the left photo above. The table is firmly supported by the clamping table base.

The nice thing about the table is it can be raised and lowered to match the task at hand. Best of all, I can remove the router and quickly fold the table up to store it against the wall whenever it’s not in use (right photo).

If you’d like to see other router table plans, just go to PlansNOW.

Good Woodworking,

Phil Huber
Online Editor, ShopNotes

Send for a preview issue of ShopNotes magazine

You can sharpen your woodworking skills with helpful tips and techniques from the editors of Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines. Get a FREE tip sent to your email address each week! Go to WoodworkingTips.com and sign up today.

Here’s last week’s tip from ShopNotes online editor Phil Huber:

The router table in my shop gets lots of use. But it’s always difficut to make fine adjustments to the fence. So I built the micro-adjuster you see in the photo above using spare parts I had around the shop.

The adjuster is easy to build. Start by drilling and tapping a strip of ¼″ aluminum to accept a piece of threaded rod. And then bend the aluminum strip into an “L” shape.

Next, drill two holes in a hardwood adjusting block. One horizontal hole for the threaded rod and a vertical one for the hold-down. Then you can cut a dado at the bottom of the fence to hold the piece of L-shaped aluminum in place.

Assembly. Put the pieces together by slipping the threaded rod through the adjusting block and adding washers and locknuts, like you see in the drawing and detail below. This allows the aluminum strip attached to the fence to be moved forward and backward one thread at a time when you make fine fence adjustments.

Fence Adjustment. To use the micro-adjuster, you’ll first need to lock down the opposite end of the fence. Then lock down the micro-adjuster by tightening the knob on top of the adjusting block. Use the turning knob to adjust the fence to the desired position. Once the fence is located where you want it, lock down the other end of the fence. Then all that’s left is to turn on your router and you’re ready to go.

If you’d like even more great ideas for getting more from your router, go to: Router Tables at PlansNow.

Good Woodworking,

Phil Huber
Online Editor, ShopNotes

Send for a preview issue of ShopNotes magazine

From the Consumer Product Safety Commission:

NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 6, 2007
Release #07-120
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (800) 525-2579
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
 

One World Technologies Recalls Throat Plates Sold with Ryobi Router Tables Due to Laceration Hazard

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of product: Ryobi Router Table Throat Plates.

Units: About 100,000.

Manufacturer: One World Technologies Inc., of Anderson, S.C.

Hazard: The throat plates do not securely snap into the router’s table top bit opening. The throat plate can come loose during operation and be ejected from the table top, posing a laceration hazard to consumers. Read the rest of this article »

Once Doug had the bending jig completed, he was ready to get started building the legs for the side table.

RIPPING THE LEG STRIPS

With the bending jig all done, I actually started making the legs. The first step was to rip a number of thin strips from 6/4 (1-5/16” thick) cherry. After some experimenting, I discovered that I could bend an 1/8”-thick strip around the arc of the jig. Any thicker than that and it wouldn’t bend around the jig without breaking. Since the finished legs were to be 1” thick, that meant I needed 8 strips per leg, or 32 strips for all four legs. Read the rest of this article »

Our readers are often our best source of information, especially for tips. For example, in ShopNotes Issue No. 88, Clark Robbins of White Lake, Michigan sent in an idea he came up with for an easy way to make micro-adjustments to his router table fence with just the turn of a screw.

Now, for most operations, a tap to the fence is all that’s needed to make adjustments. Occasionally though, a more precise adjustment is required. That’s where Clark’s micro-adjustment tip comes in.

But according to David Eaton of Anaheim, California, there was one important piece of information left out of the article. “I like to know how much adjustment I’m making when I turn the screw?” To help him determine how much his fence is moving, David uses his Screw Accuracy Chart as a handy reference.

Here are David’s comments from an email he sent to ShopNotes readers’ mail:

I have been reading Shop Notes from your 1st issue. Keep up the good work.

In Issue No. 88 on page 6, you have an article about how to Micro-Adjust Your Router Table Fence. Good idea. But in none of your 88 issues has there been anything published about the accuracy of a screw to control movement for positioning.

Engineers (and metal workers) use micrometers for making precise measurements. The spindle of an inch-system micrometer has 40 threads per inch, so that one turn moves the spindle axially 0.025 inch. As you can see in my chart, a screw with a 6-40 thread has the same movement as a micrometer: One full turn equals 0.025″ or approximately 3/128″ (Note: all decimal to inch conversions are rounded up to the nearest 1/128″.)

I found the best 3 screw sizes to use are:

• 6-40 thread, one full turn = .0250″ (3/128″)
• 10-32 thread, one full turn = .0312″ (1/32″)
• 3/8″-16 thread, one full turn = .0625″ (1/16″)

Editor’s Note: I’ll use the chart for reference, but I still like to make test cuts in a piece of scrap, just in case.