How do I set my router-bit shaft perpendicular to my router table?

[Minh Tran]

I built stumpynub's router lift (link below) and the design calls for a router to be strapped to a sliding carriage using hose-clamps.
My cuts weren't perfect so the carriage and router mount did not hold the router perpendicular to the table surface (vertical deflection).

I can loosen the hose clamps to re-adjust my router but my router bits are too short to use for reference when I try to use it to square it to the table top.

342805


Router Lift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diAg_uZlb2s

[pat warner]

Use .500" steel dowel pin.
And a machinist's square on the surface to eye-ball that pin.
Shimming is not sweet with band clamps but can be done.
But, woe be tide, for every new cutter or depth change,
you'll lose your 90°.
Maybe screw that casting to the top; a lot easier to shim
to 90° (& in 2 planes).

[mreza Salav]

It's the same as setting your drill press table: for that I just put a piece of thick wire into the chuck at an angle that's just a hair above table and rotate the chuck by hand and it should have the same consistent distance to the table. Trying the same thing, put a bolt/pin in the router and secure a U shaped piece of wire at the end of it so that the end of the thick wire is just barely touching the table (or slightly above it) and then rotate the router shaft by hand and see if the end of the wire is riding the same distance all along the table, adjust accordingly.

[glenn bradley]

What Pat said. Even in my commercial lift it took a few tried to get it right.