I had a heavy router, for which I had no real use in my workshop. And the community workshop at l’Atelier du Bois in Gaillac (France) did not have a proper dedicated router table. So, I built one for them.
I owe a lot of thanks to Tehdoor ( I guess that is Russian for Theodore), who in his YouTube Video provided some golden ideas for creating a easy-to-reach router lifting mechanism, as well as pivoting the table top to help accessibility. He has a lot of SketchUp plans available, which are incredibly detailed. See his website. Some knowledge of Russian is helpful, but not indispensable.
The table is entirely built from scrap materials. The top is about 110 cm (40 inch) wide and 50 cm (20 inch) deep. That is plenty of width to provide good support for longer pieces, and generally, pieces on the router table are not that wide. So, keeping it relatively narrow has a back-friendly benefit. The table top is a discarded kitchen table top, heavy and thick ( 40 mm, or 1 1/2 inch), so it will stay completely flat.
The first trick is not to attach the router table top to the support, but rather fix it at the back with four heavy-duty hinges. That way, one can easily access the router body to change router bits. I found a blocking mechanism to help keep the table top open.
For trick number two, you may have to double-click on the picture above to see the details of the router lifting mechanism. It is essentially a steel string that runs over two pulleys, and is drawn out by a ?crankshaft? Because the plunge router still has its springs pulling it down, and because of gravity, the router is always properly positioned.
Here, the router lifting mechanism in more detail. As the pulling block moves from left to right by turning the handle, the router lifts gently. One tour of the handle represents about 0.5 mm of height ( 1/32 inch), so you can adjust the cutting height very precisely. A rod is attached to the router height blocking mechanism to fix the router once the desired height is set.
The router fence is loosely inspired from a recent article in Fine Woodworking Magazine 144. It is quite high and large, to accommodate large pieces. It is fixed to the table with two large bolts, which fit into nuts (with an internal and external thread) that have been screwed into the table top. The right bolt is somewhat tightened, the left bolt is left loose to allow the micro-adjusting width mechanism to be set. Once the width is OK, the left bolt is tightened.
You see here the micro-adjusting mechanism for the width. The vertical bolt at the edge of the table is screwed into a nut in the table, the horizontal threaded rod is fixed to the router fence, and goes through a nut fixed into the block at the edge. Turning the rod increases or decreases the distance of the table fence.
The fence is equipped with a tube to connect the shop vacuum. The vacuum tube can easily be switched from a tube under the table to the tube mounted on the fence. Router, vacuum and lighting are turned on/off from a central switch at the left side of the table (not shown here)
Side view of the router table. The white handle determines the height of the router bit above the table
Back of the router fence
The rising mechanism, and the storage for the router bits, which can be reached once the table top is lifted
Router bits and opening hinges, which are blocked once the table top is lifted up.
Fence micro-adjustment mechanism
The router table in open position
Router table in closed position, ready to get to work. At the bottom left is the vacuum cleaner
Push block below the router to help raise/lower it/. The weakest link of the whole set-up.
A 2018 postmortem. The router table does not exist anymore, at least not in the original form. While using it, we found that dust from the table continued to creep into the parallel shafts of the router height mechanism, and blocked the upper/lowr movement. That meant regularly unmounting the router from the table, not the most userfriendly experience. The router was designed as a plunge router, not to be used upside down. So, we gave up, unmounted the construction, and converted the router table into a Woodrat router setup. RIP.