How to Turn a Regular Table into a Router Table in 7 Easy Steps

Yesterday, in need of a router table and possessing a router, with some help from instruction by Martin we took the table in our workshop, and turned it into a router table- a great tool for making details on wood- and is way more stable and exact than a normal router would be. Here's how you can make one yourself!



1. Acquire a router.

Unless you're an expert machinist you have to start with a working router. Seek one out with a detachable base if possible.

2. Acquire a table.

Ok, easy so far right? Ideally your table should be standing height (36") and the kind you don't mind putting holes in. "Look grandma, I gave your dining table more HORSEPOWER!" is not always a phrase that goes over well.

3. Drill three holes.

Figure out where the holes will need to be by removing the base, taking the face plate off the base, and marking through the screw holes onto the table. A good spot is about six inches to a foot from a corner. Drill up from the bottom, and then countersink the tops deep enough so that the mounting screws catch the threads.



4. Screw the router base to the table.

Um. Yeah. Do that.

5. Drill the center hole.

Mount a medium size straight bit into the router, slide the router into its base and turn it on. SLOWLY raise the router through the table. Repeat this with wider and wider bits until your largest bit fits through.




6. Add a fence.

A fence can have a single pivot point , and still work. Because a router has a rotary bit, there is not such thing as cutting an angle. We made ours by drilling a hole on the close side of the table, putting a dowel through a piece of wood, and setting it in place, holding the distance with a clamp. This setup is great, because its entirely removable. Swing your fence SLOWLY through a running router bit- it will cut an arc into it. This will allow you to do partial cuts by placing the fence over half of the bit.



7. Sand the tabletop.

Sand it all as close to flush as possible, and always remove any lumps or glue globs or whatever before you use it.

Great! Now you have an awesome router table for no more than the cost of a router and a table!

A Design for a Bed!

Here's what we're going for:

The back is reclined about 25 degrees for sitting and reading in bed. The large panels will be cushioned and upholstered. In what color you ask? Orange of course!



The nightstand will slide out of the side. The design could facilitate two of these, but my room can only fit one, so my version will only have one.



The foot is minimalist and of simple construction.



The full bed design.

Zig Zag

Here in our studio, activity is getting to an all-time high. We've got several projects going right now, which I'll talk about over the next couple of days.

The first is the Zig Zag Chair replica. Jake and I learned about this chair in our history of design class. Its designed by Rietveld, and, as you can see it is a relatively simple form. So simple, in fact, that the first response when we saw it was- "Hey, we could make that. Easy."



The chair runs for as much as $600, which seems astronomical.

Plans are available online for the chair, and when you see how its built, you realize how foolish you were.

Skip the next paragraph if you just want to take my word for it.

The joints at the seat and at the rear of the foot are 45 degree angles along a long edge, meaning you need to cut a 67.5 degree angle out of a long edge on each piece. Table saws typically only have an angle tilt of 45 degrees so you need to make a jig. Then Each joint is secured with drilling and filled with dowels. Drilled at a 22.5 degree angle, straight and regularly spaced. Oh and did I mention that there's a slight flare at the knees making the seat not square! Or that the joint between the seat and the back is a 98 DEGREE BOX JOINT! (Trust me, difficult.)

Look at it again. Minimalist? Yes. Simple? Not even close. The essence of modernism.

That being said, we're going to try to make them. Four of them. We've made a jig for the table saw.



We have a better band saw which we can use on the complicated box joint.



We still need to figure out how to do the drilling. But in the meantime, I made this:



More projects, including a completed bed design to come!

How do You Design a Bed?

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Done.

But seriously- project number 2 on the list is to design a build a bed so that I might lift my comfy mattress off of the floor- its nice when it doesn't look like you're living like a squatter.

I am a designer of function- not so much an aesthetician- which simply means that the form I give my work usually reflects how the item works much more than how I want it to appear (see futon). So if tasked in designing a bed, something like a four-poster or a canopy has no real interest to me because save for some bondage enthusiasts, they really serve no purpose. The same can be said of headboards and footboards. What is the point?

One could integrate storage, or a fold-out side table, or if you wanted, you could hang it from the ceiling. But for the simple act of sleep, I feel like its been done.

There are myriad ways to make a device to raise one's ass off the ground- hence the archetypal design object is the chair. Every designer does a chair. Do a search for your favorite designer's bed. There won't be much there. Loads of chairs though. This is what Corbusier had to offer the world of beds:



Here are some of my sketches. You'll notice most of them are sketches of nightstands. But after this bit of venting I think I know where I'm going to go with it after all.