Harvey Cast Iron Router Table Build

[Michael Burnside]

Ah, nice. Yea I have the 36" PCS but I already opted for the SawStop version. It's great, but the Harvey fence looks very nice. I'm considering a cross-cut slider and I will have to decide between SawStop and Harvey for that one.

[Jonathan Jung]

What kind of straightedge do you own, to check for flatness? I'm really curious, since the iron tops I've checked from Sawstop and Rockler were not even close to flat.

[Aaron Inami]

I have a Kinex 500 x 330 precision flat square:
https://shop.kinexmeasuring.com/en/p...0-p8454c22c34/

Also a 72" Stabila level. But I am also thinking of getting a Kinex 1000mm straight edge. They are thicker than the Starret and Veritas models.

I haven't checked for flatness on this Harvey table yet. Good point. I'll see if I can do a flatness check today since it's within the 30 day window, lol.


The Kinex 1000mm (39") from Taylor Tools. It's about the same price as the Starret 36, but the Starret is just under 1/4" thick. The Veritas are 3/8". These Kinex are almost 1/2" thick (0.47"). This makes the straight edge easier to lay on the edge.
https://taytools.com/products/kinex-...31370908860503

[Aaron Inami]

Okay, I cleaned up the table and checked for flatness. Holy crap this thing is heavy!! It was a lot trying to carry this out to the shop. I will say that the cast iron top is really nice quality and very smooth. No surface defects at all!

Anyways, based on the fact that this guy was getting 13 thou deviation on his Hammer jointer, I think this table is pretty darn good for what it is. You tell me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5-cjNa_yJU

I am getting a maximum 3 thou dip (0.003") on the rear, sides and miter slots.
flatness_rear.jpgflatness_side.jpgflatness_miter.jpg

On the front edge, it's pretty much flat as I could not even get a .0015 under the Stabila level:
flatness_front_edge.jpg


Coincidentally, I also checked the main cast iron table on my Felder K700S saw and it turned out to be absolutely perfect. We are talking 0.000" variation across the board! lol. Anyways, this Harvey is not going to be "Felder level" cast iron, so I would say I'm satisfied.

[Steve Wurster]

The more information you provide about this table the more I want one. Now I'm just finding excuses to NOT rebuild my router table (the biggest two are material cost and the fact that mine still works fine).

As for the cast iron being heavy, the smaller table on my Harvey Alpha Band Saw was difficult to carry down stairs into my shop due to its weight. I would probably need a helper to move this one!

[Aaron Inami]

Steve - this large router table weighs 106 lbs. Based on the size of your bandsaw table, I would think it weighs about 56 lbs.

[Aaron Inami]

More progress since last. I got the Rockler "Rock Steady" stand on Friday. I did the "build my own" and used 20" wide by 28" long. The stock stand would be too long at 32". I did look at the Kreg stand, but I did not like the way it was designed. The Rockler stand uses heavier gauge steel, but smaller cut sections (it probably works out in the end). The Rockler stand is excellent. Very heavy and "heavy duty". And they actually use 1/2" bolt for the leveling feet. Although, I will likely get McMaster-Carr leveling feet because I think they are designed better (ball joint and yellow-zinc plating).

Rocker_stand.jpg

Also cut and glued together the under-frame part of the router table top support yesterday. It's two layers of plywood for a total of 1-1/2". Yeah, I used three pieces of scrap plywood for the second layer (because why waste plywood), and nobody will ever see this layer anyways.
Top_Base_1.jpg

[Aaron Inami]

Today I finished cutting the double-layer under-top to size. Had to trim a bit off the corners to allow room for the Rockler frame bolts.

Top_base_1b.jpg Top_base_2.jpg


I did a 1-3/4" dado cut around the edges of the board - dado cut to 0.08" depth (aligning the blade height below). It took 88 passes using my 3mm blade (cutting 3/32" at a time). Man, I will be totally happy when I'm able to purchase my dado cutter set, lol.
Top_dado_1.jpg Top_dado_2.jpg

This is why I dado cut the edges - to make the "under-board" surface aligned with the top of the frame:
Top_dado_3.jpg Top_dado_4.jpg

Lastly today, I cut the top-board that will sit over the frame and, essentially, "carry" the cast iron top. It will meet flush with the 1-1/2" thick "under-board" for an air-tight passage when I eventually cut the router plate hole:
Top_top.jpg

[Jim Becker]

Coming along nicely. I agree that the Rockler stands are well built. I used the older version for my router table setup. You are certainly beefing up that underlayer for the cast iron top a lot! I just bolted the cast iron router table top to the stand directly...but there's no harm in adding those layers. Just be sure there were no screws left from your laminating where you'll be cutting a big hole. Wink, wink...nod, nod...

[Aaron Inami]

Yeah, Rockler router table will bolt directly to Rocker stand, lol. In my case, the Harvey bolt holes do not line up with anything on the stand. And, yeah, first thing I did was pull out all those screws before I started cutting that double-layer. What you are seeing is black rubbing off onto the wood from the screws. Also, I want to make the entire table heavy enough so that it doesn't get nudged out when it is resting as the outfeed for the table saw.

[Aaron Inami]

Well, I did a whole bunch of work today, and the entire last 3 days needs to be completely thrown out and re-done. I had a major "oh crap" moment at the end of the day. I got all the router table mounting hole drilled, cut the hole and flush-trim routed the edges. Cutting through 2-1/4" of plywood using hole saws and skill saw wasn't fun, lol. But the end result looks excellent. And then this happens. Oh well, I'll probably have to pick this up with you guys after I return from travel on March 17th or so. Can anyone spot the "oh crap" moment?

Cut_hole.jpgoh_crap_moment.jpg

[Steve Wurster]

Well, I did a whole bunch of work today, and the entire last 3 days needs to be completely thrown out and re-done. I had a major "oh crap" moment at the end of the day. I got all the router table mounting hole drilled, cut the hole and flush-trim routed the edges. Cutting through 2-1/4" of plywood using hole saws and skill saw wasn't fun, lol. But the end result looks excellent. And then this happens. Oh well, I'll probably have to pick this up with you guys after I return from travel on March 17th or so. Can anyone spot the "oh crap" moment?

Hmmm, I'm going to guess the router table is blocking the outrigger support arm from moving. Ouch. I'm sure there's some way to work around this without having to throw out everything you've done.

[Greg Parrish]

How about remove that corner leg and replace with a leg on each side of the corner such that they clear the arms path. You could order a single leg/foot from Rockler and take it, along with the current corner, and bolt them on either side with the angle turned outward if that makes sense. Then just apply a right angle bracket to the corner where the leg was removed for the upper/lower cross bars.

[Jim Becker]

My guess is the same as Steve. When I did this position with my old slider, there was no leg in that corner for the custom wood cabinet I constructed to hold the cast iron router table...just a bracket that hit above the support for the outrigger pivot. (There's a whole thread about that project here somewhere from "back in the day")

[Aaron Inami]

Yeah, you guys guessed correctly. At least it wasn't a total "I'm an idiot" mistake. I need 4-1/4" of clearance for that outrigger support bar. The first thought would be to move the stand away from the outrigger bar by 4-1/2". Then I would need to slide the cast iron top forward 4-1/2" - and completely re-do the plywood layers underneath. This isn't an optimum solution for stability as the cast iron would over-hang the frame about 7" and the frame would stick out the back about 3".

I think I'm going to cut a 6" section out of that leg. Then put a full-height wall on the front (the edge with the miter slot) and build cross-member supports between the remaining parts of the leg on the side so that corner doesn't collapse. I think this might be the best solution. I don't want to re-do my plywood work (which was a lot).

"How about remove that corner leg and replace with a leg on each side of the corner such that they clear the arms path."
I don't want to re-position the corner leg because I need the full 20" width for the bottom shelf (this is where the router fence is going to be stored and it's extra long at 34").

Here's a couple more pics. First shows the under-top layer mounted into the frame with lag screws (another reason why I did an extra thick 1-1/2" under-top). If you look closely, you can see where the Harvey mounting holes are located. The mounting hole width is 402mm, which is not quite enough to be bolted to the frame itself. Second pic is the final end-result of this weekend. I did a 3/4" round over to reduce whistling of air against the corner edge. It's probably not going to matter, but I'll use any trick I can use to reduce noise level.

under_top_mounted.jpgunder_top_roundover.jpg