Looking ahead

[Michael Cole]

The new shop is great, but small, especially narrow. At the moment I have an inexpensive router table (http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/#) (Bosch RA1171 cabinet style that has worked okay for me so far, but thinking about trying to consolidate things for the small shop. I have made a "deal" with my wife. I am a retired teacher and we agreed that if I sub next school year, half the money earned goes to pay back some of the expenses incurred when making the shop and the other half I get to keep for "toys". So one of the things I am thinking about is a router extension for my table saw. I have a Delta 36-725 saw. Does anyone make a router extension for that saw?

[Bryan Lisowski]

Go to infinity tools and look at the bench dog cast iron wing. It is fairly universal, and if you had to modify the hole locations, cast iron isn't difficult to drill through.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I built one for a ridgid table saw.

I built a frame that surounded 1" MDF that I veneered with counter top material. I then built an oak support structure to keep the MDF from sagging. It worked well.

I now have a SawStop, and I simply cut a hole in the side table and added supports. Not possible to add a track to this particular table since there is metal flush with the top and I don't want to cut the metal (so I do not have track, which would have been nice).

[Dan Cameron]

There seems to be a common standard for extension table mounting holes. I too have the Benchdog router extension table. Bolted to my Dewalt hybrid saw with no need to drill. That Benchdog CI table is very nice.

[Jim Becker]

I'm a fan of the Benchdog CI table setup...I even used it in a non-standard way with my slider. You get the mass of a normal table saw wing when doing the sawing part and the extra mass doesn't hurt the routing operation, either, reducing vibration, etc. Their lift is also very nice...I use that, too. While this setup isn't "inexpensive", it's a quality solution that will last longer than you will. :)

As an alternative if funding requires, you can build your own "router table extension" and use a plate or lift.

In either case, pay attention to dust collection needs, both for the router function fence and for under the table and the router, itself. A 4" minimum drop to a cabinet that surrounds the router with a 1.5-2" hose up to the fence works very nicely.