Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Modifying trim routers for template gauges.










I find that my big 2 and 3 hp routers are not up to the delicate task of routing patterns or inlays .
I was not prepared to ad yet another dedicated tool to my arsenal to I decided to modify a couple of my weapons to accept brass bushing's biggest problem for me was getting the bushing set dead center over the chuck and the template base drilled to exactly holed that position when screwed back on the base. Trial and error lead me to use the centering pin shown here to mark center then drill the template hole first.


Now, inserting the template guide baking to the lexan I could mark and drill for the set screws. In thus situation I am making the jig to retrofit my Rotozip general purpose trimmer.. It just sits in the shop most of the time as it was limited to 2-3 tasks and now can handle a 4th.I used two sheets of lexan here, One has a cut out to receive the Rotozip base and the other forms the base with the hole for the bushing. I joined them together with epoxy. the base has yet to be trimmed down as the epoxy was slow setting yesterday with the humidity.Heres the completed jig for the router zip:That's piece of scrap aluminum with set screws to hold the front of the jig where the metal strip at the back holds the guide when attached to the black screw on the height adjustment. This one is fitted to a cheap under $40.00 router that is ultra light with variable speed. I can get a larger bit in here to hog out the inside of a pattern quickly then switch to the inlay bit to refine the edges for the actual inlay.I suppose I could have been a bit neater but it works.So why did I do this?Here's what I am trying to get perfected; Iwant to be able to cut a pattern quickly and efficiently without a lot of bit changes and or the possibility of running out of the pattern.I felt I needed more tactical control than I was getting with full sized routers.I'm not quite spot on but the results are encouraging.