Well, just sharing this for anyone looking for ideas. I am waiting on the miter slot to arrive- it seems I somehow deleted it unwittingly from my order and have to now reorder it!
The incra system is admittedly a little overkill, but it was an eBay deal. My former router table was a hole in a wood box through which a router bit protruded and to which a board was clamped or screwed directly into the top for a fence!
The dust collection surround will have an opening closing air vent if I feel the router isn’t getting enough airflow, but I doubt that is going to be a problem. The V shape allows dust to collect in the bottom and the hole was made with a small and large Forster bit so I could drill right into the V and then I connected the dots so to speak with a jigsaw. There will be a Y with a 4” port to the base and 2 1/2 to the fence, because that’s how the fence is set up, but you can see that I made my hole in the base smaller than 4” so that it does not rob airflow from the fence. The 4”/2.5” Y was just the easiest way to connect a dust collector. The surround has a door- just need to put on the hinge. It is large enough to make adjustments easily. The router is a PC 890 with the adjuster that you can use through the router plate.
There will be drawers below the router with a dust cover over them. There will also be a paddle switch- as soon as I find where I put it. :-)
The top is 3’x4’ because I plan to do some large stuff and wanted lots of table area- also for the fence. I also put shelf brackets to support the overhangs because I am going to run 20’ boards for a sailboat mast over this thing and wanted the overhangs to be sturdy. I also have a habit of using the nearest thing to me to stand on to reach things, and I just know one day my stupid self is going to try to stand on this thing. Might as well plan for it.
The base is a leftover cabinet that I cut the toe kick part of the base off of and added locking swivel casters. All casters swivel and all lock, making it easy to roll in and out of tight spaces and easy to
lock in place.
I will put a miter slot on either side of the router plate, because I will never use it.... um... I mean because maybe I will need to cope on the other side of the bit or something. Hey, it’s there if I ever need it.
well darn- left the shop late last night and I guess I didn’t get a pic with the dust surround in place. It’s laying in the base in these photos. Sorry. One photo is looking into the dust bin showing how the hole meets the V at the bottom.
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