Router Bench

[Lee DeRaud]

There was a discussion here a week or so ago about having the router table as part of the table saw. I've got a Ryobi BT3000 saw with the router mounted under the right-hand wing: it works pretty well, but the surface is small and the dust collection non-existent. But before I spent too much time/energy/money customizing that setup, I'd thought I'd explore some other possibilities.

Has anyone taken "the road less traveled" and made their router table really big...and combined the router table with the workbench? My current workbench has Issues (if not full subscriptions), and has worked its way onto the upgrade/replacement list. I'm toying with the idea of making a more-or-less standard router table, but about triple-size, effectively putting the router table portion crossways on the right-hand third of it. Fence system would run in T-slots: I've got a couple of chunks of T-slot inset in my current benchtop and it's one feature I'm definitely going to carry over to the new one. And the whole thing on wheels, at the same height as the saw.

Note: (1) obviously I am not a Neander and (2) yes, the car gets to sleep in the shop at night.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

(I saw a post in another thread that implied that someone else had already done this, but now I can't find it.)

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Lee;
See pics below. I incorporated my router into my radial arm saw bench-liked the higher height since I'm tall. Note also that router has a motorized lift with a manual handwheel for fine tuning-really great system for quickly changing bits. I'm going to change the router table portion to either cast iron or phenolic when I find the right one.
Router dust collection is below and in top-rear and DC is shared with saw-added switch to top of saw to turn on DC. System works well- can't think of any negatives. Good luck
George