Router Table Fence Adaptation

[Rick Hubbard]

A few months ago I replaced the stock fence on my Craftsman hybrid table saw with a Delta T-30. There was nothing really wrong with the old fence so it’s been taking up space in the shop since then.

On New Year’s Day I had an inspiration. I wondered if I could mount the Craftsman fence on my Bench Dog steel router table. As it turned out, it was a very simple adaptation, but there were a couple of problems.

First, there was no chip collection. Second, there was no way to “bury” a bit in the fence.

I spent a couple of days trying to devise ways to overcome those two problems and have developed a prototype (meaning “ugly as mud”) router table fence that works great. What is really slick about it is the DC hookup at the end of the fence, as opposed to the top of the fence. Also, it is a snap to keep squared up and to make fine adjustments with.

Since it is a prototype, I’ll bet there are folks who have ideas for improving it and, if so, I’d like to hear those ideas.

Rick

[Rich Neighbarger]

Looks good. Nice use of the craftsman fence. I had one of those too once upon a time but ended up giving it away since I never cared for it... Too much deflection. I imagine it would be even worse on a router setup with the force on the fence rather than the table. How do you prevent this?

[Rick Hubbard]

I agree that the inherent “flex” in the Craftsman fence is a potential problem. My intention was to mitigate that by placing a quick release magnetic base behind the fence. I suspect that would do-the-do.

However, there is another problem I discovered subsequent to posting the pictures. It appears that the fence extrusion has a slight twist in it so that one end of the fence (the in-feed end) is square to the surface of the table while the opposite end is not. Although I don’t have a way of measuring this with absolute precision, I’d estimate that the bottom of the fence at the out-feed end is about 1/32 inch out of whack. That makes me think that this whole project may not have been time well spent.

Rick

[Greg Hines, MD]

I like that idea. One thing that you could try with regard to the twist you mention would be to straighten it with T-nuts and set screws. I had a fence that i needed to straighten like that. Bury the T-nuts on the inside, and then thread the set screws through from the outside. Then, you can use them to push your problem areas against the stock fence to straighten it.

Doc

[Rick Hubbard]

Now that I understand the general concept I guess my next step is going to be some serious refinement.

Thanks to Google Sketchup, I've done a bit of re-thinking this whole thing.

File is attached.

When you open the file you can "disassemble" it by using the Layers control

Rick