NYW Router fence

[dan sherman]

Since it's single digits here, it's to cold to work comfortably in the shop, so construction of my router table is on hold. Since I can build it, I have been reviewing the design, looking for anything I can change before it's to late. The only thing I'm really questioning at this point is the fence. I'm considering make the fence a little higher, and perhaps breaking the bottom adjustable fences in to 4 pieces to get a more zero clearance effect.


For those of you that have built this fence, or something similar, what would you change?

[Jeff Sudmeier]

I just finished up this fence. I pretty much followed the design. I don't know how tall the original is but I made mine 8 inches tall. The tallest router bit I could find was 3 1/2 inches so I made the lower movable faces 2" tall and did two of them stacked on top for a total of 4" of height. On top of the movable fences I have a 4" tall fixed face with t-track.

I couldn't decide if I should make the lower movable faces in 4 peices or only 2. I am glad that I went with 4. 90% of the time my router bits won't be over 2" above the table so the top 2 faces can stay closed and only the bottom ones will be open.

The other thing I changed is that I ran the top fixed face full width and tapered the corners to match the fixed portion of the fence. I just didn't like the "ugly" mdf showing...

[glenn bradley]

Just general input; I have a fence that is split. With a t-slot bit I can easily make sacrificial fence pieces of whatever height I need. I do like the idea of a continuous portion of the fence face as it passes the bit but, my commercial design will not support that. Instead I quickly make a sac-fence and plow the bit through to make a ZCI-fence when required. This is fine but I think the one piece across the top might lead me to not bother.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I love a split fence and I'll never go back to one that isn't. I use an old Delta Shaper fence on my router table. It is a set of C shaped castings that have slots to accept screws to hold the fence faces on that allow for horizontal throat adjustment, and the C castings meet in the back with a fine adjust screw and a clamp screw for splitting the fence. The fence is held down to the table by studs and wing nuts through a slot in each half of the fence.