Gave my new Jess'Em router table a work out! *w/PIC's*

[David Eisan]

Hello everyone,

I started making 15 more doors for my parents kitchen tonight (yes, I know, I am two years into their kitchen...). I took some of the rough maple that I bought a few weeks ago and put a rough edge joint on them. I then ripped sixteen ~2.75"x7' pieces on my bandsaw.

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/roughrip.jpg

The three piles on the left are the strips, they will become the rails and stiles of the doors. The piles on the right are offcuts that were under 2.75" and will be glued to larger boards for the panels in doors.Face jointing and planing the boards to about 13/16" thickness made quite a pile of shavings,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/planed.jpg

Just at the last minute before I left work today I remembered that I was starting on the doors tonight and needed to put together all the parts I needed for dust collection on my new router table. It seems strait forward enough, but no one that I know of makes a 4" to 2x2.5" port so I had to cobble one together with a 4" wye and two 4" to 2.5" adapters. The 2.5" hose connected to the under table connector on the Excel table easily enough, but in our rather large inventory of DC accessories at work, I couldn't find anything that fit the fence port. It either slopped around with a large amount of play or was just slightly too large. I made a quick call to the Jess'Em sales rep and he told me it was made for the OD of a shop vac hose, which is 2.25". He could order me the part I needed, but I needed one tonight. I had one connector that was just a *little* too large to fit into the fence port, so I thought I would modify it. I mounted the plastic fitting in a four jaw chuck on a small General International lathe and turned down the OD of the connector just enough that it fit into the port on the fence.

Here is a shot of a full DC hook up on a Jess'Em Excel router table,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/jessemdc.jpg

With all the stock dimensioned, it was time to run my sixteen 2-7/16"x13/16x7' boards through the router table to put the stick profile on the boards,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/running.jpg

Having the power feeder on the router table made this job a snap. Also with just good DC, there was almost nothing on the floor and the cut was *much* better than on my old router table. It turns out good dust collection on a router table is very important to the quality of cut. Not recycling shaving into the cut improves things a lot.I only got to spend about 2-1/2 hours in the shop tonight, but I got all the rail and stile material milled. Next time, prep stock and glue up 16 panels!

I have to wonder what the neighbors think when they look over and see,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/nightshot.jpg

With loud noises and me with big ear muffs on...

Every neighborhood has one, in mine I'm him.

David.

[Mike Cutler]

Nice David. It looks as if the setup is working well for you. I like the power feeder adaption. I would never have gotten as far as you did in 2-3 hours.
My router table in the TS extension wing isn't working out all that great anymore. A dedicated router table, or shaper is in my future I think. I like your setup.
How stable do you think that your current setup would be for longer, wider material?

[Jeff Sudmeier]

David, it looks like you are really doing things right for this kitchen!! You are glueing up the panels out of strips that are less than 2.5 inches wide??? You really do know how to work hard! :) Those strips get thrown into the firewood pile for me :)

[Matt Woodworth]

Looks like a good time. I really enjoy the productive days in the shop.

Not that you asked for advice but you might consider turning your saw around. If you do, you'll have a pretty nice work triangle instead of walking around the tablesaw to use. It's just a thought. Use it or discard it as you see fit. :)

[Jim Fancher]

Love the power feeder. How much do those run? I've never even looked into them.

[Dave Malen]

David,
I have the same table. What I love is the extreme accuracy of this table. If you need another 512th of an inch - you just dial it in. Jessem's quality is top notch.

Dave

[Chris Livingston]

David, I'm getting very frustrated with my setup for doing the cope end of my rail and stile doors and have been thinking about the Jess'Em you have. It appears you just use the miter attached to the fence, hold the wood with a push block and run it through. Do you have any problems with this setup?

[Frank Pellow]

David, thanks for showing your milling operation.

I think that I have almost convinced myself a router table. I am in the middle of doing a lot of research the Jessem model that you have is currently at the top of my list.

Why, when you went to such lengths to get good dust control on the router table, did you not collect the chips from your planer?

[Art Mulder]

Why, when you went to such lengths to get good dust control on the router table, did you not collect the chips from your planer?

Frank, I spoke to Dave shortly after he started this thread, and the answer is the huge volume. He would have had 3 barrels of shavings to deal with, and since his shop is a garage, and it was back in (mild) September when he did this, it was easier to just open the door and wear a mask.

[David Eisan]

>>>It appears you just use the miter attached to the fence, hold the wood with a push block and run it through. Do you have any problems with this setup?

The Jess'Em mitre attaches to the fence and therefore is always 90 degrees to it no matter the angle of the fence.

I used to demo this system at wood shows for Jess'Em and always hated going home to my home made table.

I have *no* troubles with it and I love it.

>>>Why, when you went to such lengths to get good dust control on the router table, did you not collect the chips from your planer?

Dust collection on a router table is very important for quality of cut. With the planer it doesn't matter. And as Art kindly pointed out, it was warm that day and I was able to work with the garage door up.

>>>Love the power feeder. How much do those run? I've never even looked into them.

A 1/4hp power feeder is all you need. The Delta I have has been discontinued here in Canada due to CSA issues, but you should be able to find a similar one for $450-550.

>>>Not that you asked for advice but you might consider turning your saw around. If you do, you'll have a pretty nice work triangle instead of walking around the tablesaw to use.

In the summer I stand at the edge of the garage slab in order to get the more floor space in the shop. Now that it is winter, the saw is turned around in the fashion you describe.

>>>You are glueing up the panels out of strips that are less than 2.5 inches wide??? You really do know how to work hard!

Akshully, I don't glue 5 of them together, I add them to a 5-7" board to make it two inches wider, or sometimes one to each edge of a 5-7" board.

Thanks,

David.

[Bobbie Morretta]

David,
Nice setup. Can you provide some details for the rolling base you added to the router table. I like the approach and would like to get one.

Regards,
Bobbie

[David Eisan]

It is a General International mobile base.

Thank you,

David.

[David DeCristoforo]

Just one question. What's that big pile of stuff on the floor in the second pic?

[Peter Quadarella]

It's a pile of shavings from a really tiny jointer plane. ;)