Best Wood for Router Fence?

[Steve H Graham]

I decided to make a simple router fence to go on my table saw extension. It will be a bottomless box that clamps to the back side of the Biesemeyer fence. I figure I'll use wood that is about 5" wide and 1" thick, with a couple of braces inside the box.

Somebody suggested a DRO for the Biesemeyer. Maybe now I have a reason to get one.

What's a good wood to use? I'm near Miami, and the garage is not air-conditioned, so the humidity swings a lot. I don't want to worry about this thing changing shape all the time.

[Russell Tribby]

MDF. I wouldn't use wood at all.

[Steve H Graham]

I was thinking that, but I hate that stuff. It's so heavy, and I don't think it's good for my saw.

[Myk Rian]

If not 3/4" MDF, then 3/4" baltic birch ply.

[Brian Kincaid]

+1 MDF. Buy the $10 blade from HD / Lowes and put it on your saw when you cut MDF.

Brian

[Steve H Graham]

I have a 4 x 8 sheet of what appears to be 1" furniture-grade plywood. It's a sign made for a defunct business. It never occurred to me that I could use plywood. Will that work? I was planning to put a few rabbets and dadoes in it instead of just hammering it together. I just figured you couldn't rout plywood.

[glenn bradley]

+1 MDF. build your frame and or support structure out of a quality ply and your movable faces out of MDF. That will cut your weight and replacement or taller faces can be easily made. The easiest way to hold stuff to a Bies is to drill and tap a couple holes in the top and use threaded knobs to hold your carcass on. I have seen clamp methods used as well.

[Gary Kvasnicka]

Steve,
You can see pictures of mine in this thread. Nothing fancy, just plywood fence stapled and glued with MDF faces.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=108274

[Steve H Graham]

Gary, how did you fasten the plywood parts together? I can't see any screws.

I don't want to go overboard on this; I'd like to make a usable but basic fence, which would make it easier for me to make a better one later.

[Curt Harms]

I made a router fence from 3/4" ply glued together, it works well. Here's something else to think about--make the router fence stand alone rather than attaching it to the T.S. fence. The advantage is if you're routing away and screw up one piece (Moi?:o) you may not have to move the router setup in order to cut another piece. I can rip about 8" while leaving the router fence in place.

One thing to keep in mind about router table fences, they don't have to be parallel to anything unlike table saw fences. I would recommend an adjustable opening for more stable stock support and dust collection. I used T track embedded in the back of the movable faces and that has worked out well for me.

Curt

[Peter Quinn]

I made a similar fence that clamps to my beis fence. I included dust collection, made it from 3/4" Russian birch with MDF faces that can be replaced as needed for ZCI situations. I don't recommend solid wood at all in this situation.

[Steve H Graham]

I wanted the router fence attached to the table saw fence so I could use the table saw fence and scale to square and position the router fence.

One idea that occurred to me was that I could get a second Biesemeyer fence and open one side up for a router bit, but new fences are expensive, and nobody seems to have old ones for sale.

[Stan Johnsey]

. . . speaking as an experienced worker but as a noob . . . I recently made a router fence from 3/4" MDF and as an afterthought put on some tabs to allow me to clamp it to my Biesemeyer fence.

It is easy and cheap to make such a fence, cost you about five bucks in material. After I got it made I decided it would be better as a pivoting fence but still allowing me to attach it to the Biesemeyer fence if I found th need.

[Craig Coney]

MDF. I wouldn't use wood at all.
+1 for the MDF.

HTC also has a clamp on router fence for the Bies, I think it was on clearance for $40 or so, looks like an aluminum extrusion with melamine faces on it.

[Todd Burch]

I was thinking that, but I hate that stuff. It's so heavy, and I don't think it's good for my saw.

Heavy? How big is this fence going to be??!!! It's stable, it's plenty dense, it's cheap, and when you run your router bit into it - the bit won't even know it hit something.

[John Keeton]

Steve, I used some scrap plywood from my local cabinet shop. He sells me cutoffs and letovers cheap, and they come in handy for various jigs, etc. Here is a link (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=94919&d=1218999082) that I hope works to a prior pic posted in a thread on my fence and router extension wing.

[Steve H Graham]

Heavy? How big is this fence going to be??!!! It's stable, it's plenty dense, it's cheap, and when you run your router bit into it - the bit won't even know it hit something.

I just hate having to lug heavy stuff around, and I'll be taking this thing off the Biesemeyer every time I want to use the saw.

John, that looks perfect. Seems like a lot of people have come up with great solutions to this problem.

[Neal Clayton]

What's a good wood to use?

there's not one better than a scrap piece of metal.

two pieces cut from a length of aluminum stud at the scrap yard worked fine for me.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I have a Shop Fox bies clone on my Unisaw, and I have a slip-on that I made out of 3/4 ply for a router table fence. Its just a simple H section that slips over the faces of the fence, and I bolted a T-track on the top of the fence that interfaces with T bolts in the slip on to hold it in place. The other side of the "H" doubles as my sacrificial fence for the table saw. The thing about router fences is that they really don't need to be all that straight, most of the important work is right at the bit. They should be true enough than when you rout long profiles they keep the profile constant along the length of the board, but other than that they don't really affect the cut all that much. The shop fox fence has room for a 2nd lens&pointer on the other side of the T so you can add a 2nd scale for the router side of the fence. If I want to return my fence to where I was when I was sawing, I just slap a C clamp on the rail where the fence was when I was sawing, move the fence to the router, then slide it back to the C clamp when I'm done.

I've been thinking about getting a second fence for my Shop Fox rails but I think I'll make my next router table fence so it clamps into the miter slots instead, then I can rout shorter pieces without having to go around to the side of the saw while in operation.

[John Lohmann]

The HTC HMS400 is $20 + $9.95 s&h now if they still have them. I ordered one on Tues. I figured for $20 I could make some thing, it's aluminum with a wood split fence.

[Curt Harms]

Here's my prototype router fence

front view:
116465

It was pretty easy to devise a way to mount the fence to the Mule TS fence rail.

rear view:
116466

The router fence was not that rigid so I devised a means to lock the rear as well as the front.
116467

This shows how I mounted the face pieces. Just good ol' T track.


The dust collection works very well for edge work, routing a dado or slot is a messy operation. I'm still thinking on that problem. Hope this provides ideas.

Curt