Router table fence help!

[Joseph Montroy]

Hi all,
This is my first post, so let me introduce myself. I have been building up my wood shop in order to restore/renovate an old farm house. Part of this included replacing the original 1947 picture windows. Now I have to task of trimming out the windows. I've been finishing rough poplar into 3/4x3.5" boards for the casings (early American look) that will eventually get painted. I'm making the sills out of 8/4 red oak that is 6/4 when finished and will have a full bullnose on all three extruding sides.

While I have collected an old (50's or 60's) Powermatic planer and jointer in excellent shape to handle these tasks, I need some help with the router. I have an MLCS "heavyweight" cast iron router table. It is flat, and with the 1.5" bullnose bit powered by a 3.25hp router, the table is rock solid. No wobbling or vibrating at all.

However, the original fence on this table it terrible! With the bullnose, I need to be able to adjust the outfeed table so I can finish each board by pushing against the outfeed table. I did manage to get the first sill (the smallest one) done without too much hand sanding. However, some of these sills will be 7' long. That's a big piece of lumber to risk ruining with a crappy fence, not to mention the danger to my digits!

I have no problem paying for a quality fence. My problem is that with the table mounted in the stand, the top is 3.5" thick. Even if I went top of the line with something like a Wonderfence, I don't think I can get it to mount to a table that thick? The instructions list 1 3/8" as the max thickness of the table top. Anyone have any experience or advice here?

Thanks for the help!

[david brum]

I don't have one of these, but Freud makes a nifty router table fence which appears to be a scaled down shaper fence with independent fence adjustments. It wouldn't be too difficult to drill and tap the mounting holes in your cast iron top.

[glenn bradley]

How are you supporting your material? A router table is not a shaper although it is my preferred method for doing these sorts of tasks. Your material should me supported on infeed and outfeed supports so that with the cutter withdrawn, you can easily pass the material through the cutting path without having to bear down or lever it into the cutter area. Did that make sense?

What I am saying is that if you are using enough force to move your fence, you are using too much force. The material should pass in front of the cutter in such a way as to only require a few featherboards for control at the cutter area. If your material is such that brute force is required to muscle it through the cutting path I would look for a heavy shaper or try to find someone to do those few profiles for you.

All that being said, I found the Freud fence attachment points to be too narrowly spaced to handle the errant leverage sometimes exhibited when running larger pieces of material even when properly supported. From your description it sounds like you have the MLCS table and stand(?). This does present a problem because there is no overhang on the sides of the table making it difficult to clamp support blocks behind the fence faces. Never the less, if your material is irregular enough to require that much force to keep it on the feed path I would try to contrive a method of adding support to the existing fence or replace it with a temporary fence deigned for this particular cut.

I think your router table / stand intersection looks something like this:

263387

Maybe you could make a couple blocks like this:

263386

And do something like so with a shop made temporary fence:

263385 . 263390

The rectangle on the left side of the temporary fence is my attempt to represent a shim plate that would perform the jointing function at the outfeed. Or . . . maybe I am totally off base and misunderstood what you were trying for(?). :o

[Joe Hillmann]

I recently needed a fence on my router for the first time ever. I ended up using a 2 foot length of 2x4 that was jointed straight on one side then cut a notch out of it in the center where the router bit will sit. To use it I just used a c-clamp on each end, adjustments are done by loosening one camp and very light taps with a mallet. It is far from high tech but it got the job done for me. For this to work with a bullnose bit you would have to set it up so you don't fully remove the front edge of the board in the center otherwise you would have to shim your outfeed fence.

[Joseph Montroy]

Glenn, you hit the nail on the head. I do have the MLCS table and stand. When running boards, there is no "muscle" needed. I have infeed and outfeed rollers and the jointed/planed 1.5" boards glide smoothly across them. My problem lies in the original fence. There was no way to offset the outfeed. Additionally, one bolt holds each side of the fence and they are not parallel. So, regardless, I need a different fence. Since I need a better fence, I'd rather find a way to upgrade just once and be happy with it.

I'm wondering now if I should take the table off the stand and make my own stand for it so I can use a better fence? Or find a way to retrofit a better fence onto my table as it is. I had hoped that the cast iron would provide an easier way to keep superior tolerance, but have quickly found that most of this lies in the fence :(

[Chris Padilla]

Check out the fences here:

http://www.woodpeck.com/routersystems.html

I love the fences from Incra...the adjustments and repeatability are outstanding.

[glenn bradley]

Cast iron is easy to drill. I know I hemmed and hawwed over it when I added some CI wings to a previous tablesaw. It turned out to be as easy as everyone said. The reason I say all this is that you could attach a couple of runners to the end of your table and use a fence style that clamps to the outer edges. You would be creating the overhang that I found router tables should have . . . this is why I have a new top :o.

263405

There are several shop made fence plans out there or you could come up with your own. I favor the very simple Rockler style fences that ride in slots on the table. You could do something similar but the clamping would have to occur on the added runners kinda like so (http://www.incra.com/product_rtf_wf37.htm).

Kreg make a very nice fence but, you would still need a slot in your table and it would cost half what your whole table did. Don't get me wrong, the fence is appropriately priced. I just don't know that this is the direction I would go. But, that's me, not you ;). We all have our likes and dislikes. At any rate the addition of runners would open up your options and not cost you a thing initially. As far as the different face positions for jointing, that can be handled by some double stick tape and a piece of plastic binder cover, laminate or even shim stock. I have a set of shims built to allow such an adjustment on my current fence. They are right there in the drawer but, I find that I use a couple layers of tape or a scrap of veneer more often than not :rolleyes:.

Another option is to set the fence so that the bull nose maximum depth is dead even with the outfeed. This will result in a profile that is not quite fully machined so a bit of hand sanding would have to follow. If time is of the essence I would try a workaround like we've been talking about. If you have the time, I too would pursue a permanent solution. I always feel better knowing that next time I need to do something, I will be all set so I can totally relate to that.

[Michael Mayo]

My vote would be to buy an Incra Ultra type fence and retrofit it to your CI top. Once it is installed no more worries. I am saving my pennies to add one to the nice table I built. The fence in the plans for my table stinks.

[Andrew Kertesz]

Can't you adjust accordingly and just shim the outfeed side with a strip of formica or something along those lines; even a thin strip of brass sheet or anything that won't mark your stock.

[Joseph Montroy]

Andrew, I can't just shim, because the way the fence is set up it just doesn't stay where I put it. The design of the original fence really is terrible. Glenn, that is an EXCELLENT idea about drilling the sides to mount tabs! That is probably the route I will go eventually. However, to get by until a permanent solution can be found, could I use a jointed 2x4 on the opposite side, so that my board would slide between the fence and the bit? I know this is a bit more dangerous, but my boards are 6" wide and 1.5" thick, there is plenty of space to use push paddles. Is there something that I am missing or not thinking of? Thanks for the great advice so far, it's appreciated!
JC

[john bateman]

It seems like it would not be that hard to add 2 wooden sub-fences to your MLCS fence. Just make the outfeed fence thicker by whatever dimension you need.

[Mike Wilkins]

Something simple may be just the ticket. Have you ever seen Doug Stowe, the box making dude in some of the FineWoodworking magazine articles? His router table fence is nothing more than a solid board with a cut-out for the bit, clamped on each end. You should have no problem clamping the end of the fence to the table if needed. Or just use Doug's design. He won't mind.

[Joe Hillmann]

That sounds like a very difficult way to do it without getting a wavy edge. If you try I would suggest putting a couple feather boards on the table to push the boar towards the jointed 2x4.

What about using a 3/4" 1/4round bit and a straight fence and two passes one for the top side and one for the bottom. It would give you nearly the same results as the bullnose bit.