Questions about Table Saw extension tables

[Wendell Wilkerson]

A while back I put a Vega rip fence with 50" inch rails on my Rojek table saw. I starting to think about building a right extension table with a router insert. The Vega rails came with some plates on the bottom of the rails for attaching an extension table. My questions are :

1) Are extension table normally only attached to the fence rails?

2) If the extension table is attached to main saw table, how is this normally done? There are holes drilled and tapped along the right edge of my saw table but I am having a hard time picturing a way to build the extension table to use these holes.

My saw is on a mobile base so I am trying to say away from an extension table design with legs.

Thanks,
Wendell

[Paul Dwight]

If your extension table is supported only by the fence rails, it would be a challenge to build a table that wouldn't sag under the weight of a table-mounted router. I'm not sure what distance you have between the fence rails on your Rojek, but something like 27" would be typical for American-style tablesaws. A 27" span of MDF or plywood with a hole cut in it for a router insert wouldn't be most rigid structure in your shop. Perhaps you could build a shallow torsion box and use that for the extension table. Maybe mount the box to the fence rails with angle iron glued-and-screwed to the edges of the box. When I had an extension table on my 50" Vega fence, I used the mounting plates that Vega welded to the rails to adjust the extension table flush with the saw table (drilled and threaded holes in the mounting plates for bolts that adjusted the table up and down, with jamb nuts to lock the adjustment in place). The MDF table sagged some over time but it didn't matter much 'cause I wasn't using it as a router table. Hope some of this helps. -- Paul

[Dave Arbuckle]

My right extension / router table is attached only to the fence rails. It is (if memory serves) a 1 1/16" thick MDF table with HPL top and bottom, commercially made by Woodpeckers. It has a couple fairly small angle steel braces running fore and aft under it.

Works just fine for me. A Freud FT2000e hangs under it, has for 3 years or so.

Dave

[Scott Coffelt]

One way to solve this is attache the table to the rails, then take a pencil and mark the areas where the holes are on the wing. Drill and insert some inserts. You can then use bolk to tighten the wing and the table together. Next depending on the size of the table, you can mount angle iron across the keep them from sagging. As far as legs, even though TS are heavy when you place weigh out to the right, the TS can become less stable. I would recommend using legs, you could attach casters on the legs and the whole unit would still be mobile.

[Bruce Page]

Wendell, I don’t know if this applies to a Rojek, but I built a frame under my Woodhaven extension table and attached it to the rails and the right extension wing of my Unisaw. The undercut on the frame is to clear the motor cover door.

[Phil B]

I just built a new router cabinet and extension table for my saw. In this design I made the cabinet support the table with no connection to the fence rail (Unifence) at all. Something to keep in mind is that your "cabinet" is a great deal more structurally sound than the flimsy metal found on more common machines, you can use this to your advantage here.

Another thing you might want to do is provide some means of leveling the table to the iron table of the saw. Most designs and OEM tables don't really allow for this but it isn't all that hard to do if you allow for it in the design.

Lastly, if you have a 50" Vega kit that probably gives you about 60" - 65" or so installed on the Rojek, that's a LOT of rip capacity for a slider and probably way overkill. If you could benefit from the space, I would cut them down.

PMB
http://benchmark.20m.com