Building Router Table Tops

By Ken Schulte

Building the top of your table is probably the most time consuming part of the process.  Most people decide on using a laminate on top of a substrate.  There are several schools of thought on the substrate material, but the most favorite seems to be MDF (medium density fiberboard)  We will use that for this discussion.


Choose which laminate according to your preference.  You can find reasonably priced laminate at your Home Depot or Lowe's stores.  The price is generally from $40 to $50 a sheet. (4 x 8)  Cut the MDF to your desired size.  Make sure you have enough work area for the type of projects you want to make.  Cement or glue, and then glue together two layers of MDF for a total of 1 1/2" thick.  

Glue the laminate onto the MDF with a good quality contact cement.  When you cut the laminate, you don't have to have it exact, let the laminate hang over the edge of the MDF.  When the cement is dry trim the excess laminate off the top with a flush trim bit.  The trim bit allows you to get an exact fit and will give you professional results.  I also like to use a long trim bit to square up the sides of the MDF to itself.  

Cutting the insert

This next section involves cutting the hole for the insert.  There are several ways to do this and no one way is best.  You can buy ready made templates that will help you to cut out the hole for the insert so it's a perfect fit.  You will need a porter cable style bushing for your router and a straight bit designed for template cutting.  If you buy our deluxe insert or acrylic inserts, the stand templates offered in catalogs will work.

The goal here is to make the router insert plate flush to the table.  However there is one school of thought that should be explored.    In some climates there can be movement in the substrate which would cause your router insert to no longer be flush at certain times of the year.  In this case you would want to cut the insert slightly deeper than flush.  To bring the insert back to flush you would use an insert leveler or magnet system.  Installing these are discussed at the bottom of the article.bottom of the article.  All Router Table Depot tables are cut slightly deeper and have a insert leveler built into them.

Installing router plates

Ok, you got the insert, now you want to make it fit into your project.  There is a couple of things to keep in mind.  

1.  First, if its not perfect, its ok, I will show you how to make any adjustments.

2.  Second you basically are going to make a template to be able to use your router to make a cutout to fit the insert into.  

Thirdly make sure your router table is at least 1" thick for stability.  These directions guide you through making your own template, which is basically a box made from scrap wood.

You will need: a router with a straight bit, pencil, straightedge and some double sided tape.

1.  Take the router plate insert and place it on your router table where you want it to go.  Draw a line around it.  This line is what you will use to line up your bit.

2.  Look at your router, is the base round?  Porter Cable routers have a flat edge on one side.  If you have a PC then use the flat edge side for your routering.  If your routers base is round pick a spot, take a piece of masking tape and put it on the top side and draw a line on it.  Your doing this so that when you line your router up on your template you get the same spacing all the way around.

3.  Place your router on the top and line up the outside edge of the straight bit so that it touches the line (at the reference mark you just made)  Make sure the bit is on the inside of the reference line you drew.  Now make a reference line where your edge of your router meets the table top.

4.  You can measure this distance and this is the distance from the outside of the routers base to the bit.  Lets say its 2 inches.  You would then draw a 2 " box around the tracing of the router plate insert.

5.  Make a template.  Use some scrap MDF or something similar to make a box around your reference line.  It really looks like a picture frame and basically that is all it is, a cheap, funny looking picture frame.  This box will guide your router around to cut out the insert hole.  Cut the lengths and widths until they are the right size.  Line up the MDF with the reference lines and put a piece of tape over the top of it.  Make sure you get it just right.  When you like it, glue on some small scrap pieces of wood to hold the butt joint together.

6.  Take your double sided tape and tape your picture frame (jig) to the table so that the lines are lined up.  Make a dry run with your router to make sure the bit stays on the inside of the line.

7.  When your ready to rout, make sure you have the reference mark on your router touching the outside of your jig.  OPTION:  I highly recommend making a test rout on some junk wood before you make your first cut.  You never know what mistake you made and it would be a shame to ruin the good table top.

8.  Rout a shallow groove around the inside of your jig.  Take a look at it and make any adjustments you might need.  Then adjust your router so that the depth of the cut is slightly deeper (1/100th is a suggestion) than the thickness of the router plate insert.  Continue routing the profile to the desired depth.

9.  Cut out the inside with a jig saw.


Attaching Trim to your router table


We are known for our hardwood trims on our custom tables.  You can attach them easily yourself with a few good techniques.  By far the easiest way to have hardwood flush to the top is by using a Flush Trim router bit.  I recommend a larger bit that has at least a 1" cutting service.

• Cut the wood trim to size on the widths first  Make sure you cut the wood trim to the exact size.  If you make a mistake and the trim ends up sticking out of the table a bit too long, you can always trim the whole edge on the tablesaw.  When gluing to the table top get it as close to flush as you can.
  

•  Attach the lengths in the same manor.
  

• When the glue is dried, attach a flush trim router bit to your router and turn the table on its side.  I like to put a piece of painters taple along the edge of the laminate where it meets the wood to protect the laminate and protect it from chipping.  
  

• Take the flush trim router bit and have the profile bearing ride along the laminate side of the table.  This will clean up the edge and give you a flush finish.  It will also help you with any fine sanding you might have to do.