Suggestions wanted on a horizontal router table.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,
After looking at several ideas for router tables, I got to thinking (I know - dangerous thing to do :D)
what about laying the router on it's side instead of trying to suspend it underneath?
Wouldn't that relieve a lot of the stress the weight of the router puts on the table top?

For the record - this is going to be for the dedicated purpose of jointing, not general routing.

[Steve Roxberg]

Woodhaven sells one you could look at for ideas, or purchase.

www.woodhaven.com (http://www.woodhaven.com)

[Jason Garrett]

MLCS has one too.

http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/orderstatus/html/smarthtml/pages/horiztabl.html

[Art Mann]

Mechanically speaking, it is easier to support a router vertically in a horizontal table than it is to suspend it horizontally in a vertical table. There are definitely advantages to having the shaft rotate in the horzontal plane, but ease of construction of a stable fixed platform is definitely not one of them. You will have to go to a lot of trouble to insure that the heavy cantilevered mass is held perfectly horizontal. It seems to me it would be much harder to do the setup and adjustment to perform a jointing operation also.

[glenn bradley]

Art's got it. Although I like most of their stuff and have no first hand experience; there was a thread here about the MLCS table having to much flex to be accurate. Do a search.

As far as jointing goes it would be much better to do this in a standard RT with the wood laying flat as opposed to 'on end', eh?

[Greg Crawford]

Bill Hylton's book "Router Magic" has plans for a horizontal router table mounted to the end of a table saw. It could be modified to mount to anything, though.

[Ron Crusee]

Here's mine, not from plans, I just started building and ended up with it. Uses drawer slides for the tables x and y movement, cuts very tight, repeatability is perfect. No problems with the router alignment even when using the heavy PC7518 pictured. About 4 hours time and next to no $$ to build.

[Ron Crusee]

Some example cuts

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello Ron,
Thank you!
That gives me some direction to go.