Need some advice

[Peter Dufresne]

Hi all,

I just moved to a much larger home and I inherited a slightly larger space for my shop. It is still onlly about 300 sq ft so space is a premium. I am determined to build this shop right though and to that end I have been doin some serious planning.

Because of the space issues I will have here and I had in my old space I put everything on casters to roll off to the side when not in use. My dilemma is this:

I have some more space (slightly) and I am considering building a separate router table for my shop. In my old dhop I built an extension table onto my table saw and popped the router in there with a lift plate.

What would be the advantage to a dedicated router table?

[Jim Becker]

What would be the advantage to a dedicated router table?

Much better dust collection and multi-use since you can also use it as infeed/outfeed support and additional assembly space for smaller (or bigger...)projects.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Also, with a stand alone table a lot of the time, you will get more control over the peice being routed.

When the router is mouted in the right hand extension, you have to stand behind the fence. With a stand alone table you can stand looking at the face. I have used some routers in extension wings and I much prefer a stand alone router table.

[John Miliunas]

The dust collection on a stand-alone is definitely the big advantage. In my old shop (as it happens, just a touch over 300 sq/ft.) I had a Delta CS with a cast iron left wing I got, from of all places, at Harbor Freight and it had the router insert ability on it. There certainly weren't any more constraints of using it there than in a stand-alone unit, but the dust collection was more of a chore. I had a home-made fence, to which I rigged up a piece of 4" flex and, believe it or not, took care of a LOT of the chips. Had I stayed in that particular situation, I had seriously considered closing up more of that extension to help further with the dust collection. :) I was able to gain a fair amount of space that way, though another thought I always had was to incorporate the router into the outfeed table. Again, something which one pretty much needs and is a space-saver in a small shop.:) :cool:

[Steve Cox]

One other advantage is seperate set ups. For instance, if you want to make 1/4 round molding, one common method is to route the edge and then rip it off a wider board. If the router is located in the tablesaw extensions operations like this become more difficult if not impossible.

[scott spencer]

Hi Peter - My shop is tiny....to say that space is a premium is an understatement! Making the space work is a big puzzle and I kind of enjoy trying to maximize it. My RT is on the right side of my TS and is set up so that I can face the fence so there's no real access issue. I imagine DC is better with an enclosed RT but with the shop vac going to the fence's dust port, and the DC going to an attachment on the router, collection was really pretty good....in fact the shop vac had too much suction at the fence and wanted to pull the work piece when it got close to the fence opening.

Unfortunately that RT got sold with my saw recently so I'm planning a new one. One idea I'd like to incorporate is to build the RT on the right side of the TS and add a rolling enclosure that fits underneath and can be moved in and out as I want. I plan to make the DC work similary to a regular dedicated router cabinet.