This week's project turned out to be an item for the shop. For some time now I have been looking for ideas for a portable router table. The one that I currently use is connected to one of the wings of my table saw. Actually it works well and is pretty handy along with the fact that it does not take up any additional room in my basement shop. I have had this set up for 10 years now (ever since I was 29) but every now and then I would like to have a router table available when I working at some site other than the basement shop. I came across this plan from a Shop Notes Magazine that looked like it would work well for what I had in mind. Plus I could use a lot of my wood scraps from my good old resource pile for this project. 
I started by building the case. This case would hold the table top plus store the router inside. I cut out all these parts from 1/2 inch plywood. The sides were made by gluing two boards together making both sides 1 inch thick. I used 1/2 inch plywood for the back, bottom and front. The front would later be cut in half to make doors. Something that I did this time was to mark all the boards with blue tape and write on that tape as to what side would be the inside and what would be the top. The plan called for a case that would be nine inches tall, but my router when fully extended, was close to twelve inches so I modified the plan so the height was 12 1/2 inches tall. (Thus more blue tape markers to keep me straight.) 
I put my stack dado blades in the table saw so I could saw a dado 1/2 inch wide 3/4 deep for the back to be fit in and be bonded with the sides. The picture at the right is looking down from the top. I slopped on a lot of glue and used screws to fasten it all together. The case needs to be fairly strong to hold the router when it is running at it's full RPM's. When I mounted the front, I cut the board into two equal pieces and attached those pieces with hinges.
For a table top I found two pieces of MDF that were left over from the "Table for Two" project. The pro is that they were laminated on both sides which could make a smooth table surface. The con is that MDF is made up of glued compressed saw dust making me wonder how long it would hold up once I drill a few dozen screws in it. (Another one of those "I guess we will find out later" theories.)
Lots of glue and about 5 biscuits dispersed throughout the middle and I ended up with a 14 inch wide board 4 feet long. (Once again I cheated the campfire wood pile of some wasted pieces.) I was a little disappointed as the glue line seemed to show up in the laminate a little more than I thought it would. The more I worked on it the worse it seemed to show up. (Like fighting that zit on my nose the day of my wedding.) That glue line may be noticeable but at least the patched board was smooth and flat. I'll slap a little paste wax over the seam and the whole top will be slick for boards to slide across.
The next step was to saw that table top board into 3 pieces. One will be the main table top and the other two pieces will be used to make wings on each side of the case. (There will be a few scraps for a camp fire some night, but who wants to see laminate burn??) So far in this project the wood was free, but the hardware bill was starting to add up. To the left is a router table insert that I purchased. The goal now was to install that insert into the table top. Eventually the router will be attached to the insert. What you see over to the left is a jig being made to the exact dimensions of the insert. This is being made on 1/4 inch hard board.
Once I had the jig made up I taped it to the table top with two-sided carpet tap and cut the center out with the jig saw to remove the bulk of the center. When that was done, I trimmed up the balance of the inside edge using my router and a flush trimming bit. When done, I pulled off the hard board jig and touched up any loose laminate that may have needed attention. Below is a picture of the end result showing where the insert fits nicely in the middle of the table. 
The picture to the right is where we are so far. Next week I hope to have the router installed, the wings attached, and a fence built for the table top.
I was thinking this would go a little faster than it did. Maybe, I'm slowing down a little... Na - still fast (as pictured in my mind).
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