We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
The day after tomorrow is Independence Day, and there’s nothing more independent than building out your own workshop. Workshop projects are a double bonus because you save money by building fixtures yourself, and then you save money and gain independence while using them.
I started digging into our magazine archives and found a number of articles on building your own router table. Now, that’s nothing special because all woodworking magazines do router table plans. If anything, the fact that Popular Woodworking Magazine has not published a router table plan for over four years makes us a little different. But these ones I found are actually really cool. They are all high-quality designs and quite creative. Especially if you’re a beginner who is just now building out your shop, I think you’ll find these very helpful.
All four of these designs are available in our store as part of the magazine issues in which they originally appeared. Just click on the image to buy a copy. You might want to mix and match different design aspects to create your own unique router table.
1) A tilt-top version. This makes it easy to access the router for bit changes.
2) A table-mate version. This fits on your standard Black & Decker Workmate 225 and has a nice, large top.
3) The one-weekend table. This one is quite compact, stores easily and mounts to the top of your workbench when needed.
4) The no-nonsense router table. Probably the easiest of the four to build.
And speaking of no-nonsense designs for your workshop, there is one more router table and 23 other projects in our new book from Danny Proulx, “Practical Woodshop Projects.” Danny was famous for his stripped-down approach. That approach is perfectly suited to shop jobs. You don’t need fancy, just solid and functional! The router table in this book is a lot like the one that Norm Abram made famous, with drawers for your bits.
Celebrate your independence by spending a lot of time in your shop this weekend and making it that much easier to use!
–Dan Farnbach
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
Just a thought about a different approach to building a router table.
Everybody wants a router table on a cabinet with a router lift. An overwhelming project for the new woodworker.
So, first build the table and mount it on a 2×4 frame. As time and money permits add the lift and finally the cabinet.
We all take baby steps before we run. Let’s take that approach to the router table. Besides that gives you three editorial articles for the blog / magazine.
Dan,
We seem to forget your the new guy. You have made a positive difference in the magazine and web site since you started. Keep up the great work, I have enjoyed everything you have done.
Dan, “… these ones …” ? Are you from Pittsburgh?
Dan,
Sometimes I feel like you’re my new best friend. You seem to send me what I need without me having to ask for it. I just picked up a beauty of a 3HP Porter Cable router and was thinking: “I need to mount this sucker in a new router table.” Thanks for reading my mind and doing all the research!
Now I just need to figure out how to blend Nick Engler’s tilt top with Norm Abram’s large storage capacity floor model.
Thanks,
Steve-O