# Homemade router table - advice please



## otter (14 Mar 2017)

More specifically, advice needed for attaching oak to chipboard...

I am making my own router table and using an spare kitchen cupboard shelf as the top. This is made from 19mm melamine laminated chipboard. For strength I am coupling it with a piece of 12mm birch ply underneath and I am using 20mm thick oak strips around the edges to protect the edge of the chipboard. 

My question really is how to attach the oak to the bare chipboard edges. Glue and screws for the outside edges? Will this be strong enough bind to the bare chipboard? Biscuits maybe? Will biscuits or screws open up the chipboard to give an un-flat surface?

What about the internal edges (i.e. what the 6mm insert plate sits in). These oak strips will be rebated for the insert plate so I will only have a 13mm face for any screws. Bicuits again? 

Hope this makes sense, I will include a drawing to hopefully demonstrate what I mean as soon as I get into work. 

Thanks for any advice

Otts


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## PAC1 (14 Mar 2017)

I am not sure it is a good plan.
Melamine is not that hard wearing, the chipboard can also be rather uneven. If you glue biscuits into the chipboard to support the router plate framing you cannot guarantee the chipboard will not expand locally causing the surface to swell out of any working tolerance. The plywood on the underside then makes the top unbalanced and prone to bow.


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## nev (14 Mar 2017)

Why not just make the ply 20mm bigger all round than the MFC and fix the oak down to that and just drop the MFC into it?


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## otter (14 Mar 2017)

PAC1":kvno4fw3 said:


> I am not sure it is a good plan.
> Melamine is not that hard wearing, the chipboard can also be rather uneven. If you glue biscuits into the chipboard to support the router plate framing you cannot guarantee the chipboard will not expand locally causing the surface to swell out of any working tolerance. The plywood on the underside then makes the top unbalanced and prone to bow.



Thanks. This was the concern, but wasn't sure if it was unfounded or not.


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## otter (14 Mar 2017)

nev":39rqr7pf said:


> Why not just make the ply 20mm bigger all round than the MFC and fix the oak down to that and just drop the MFC into it?



To be honest, the ply is intended to sit underneath the oak anyway. I did think about this, but thought I was being a bit silly to not attach the oak to the MFC. Maybe not. Thanks.


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## sunnybob (14 Mar 2017)

The warpage will come from using two different materials.
My router table is made from 2 layers of 18 mm melamine surfaced chip board. They are glued and screwed together from underneath. the screws in a grid pattern every 20 cm.
Then edged with some cherry i had left over, purely to stop the chipboard edges from splintering. the cherry strips are also glued and screwed onto the edge of the chipboard.
My advice it make the table as big as possible. Mine is 90 cm square, and I can wind the router down below the surface and use it as a super flat layout table.


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## Br5d (3 Apr 2017)

I just used an offcut from a kitchen counter and milled out where the router sits and added an inset for a pc of phenolic board. Works a treat. No issues with warping or torsional forces.


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## sunnybob (3 Apr 2017)

As long as the kitchen work surface is flat then thats all you need
My first table used an offcut. Not knowing any better I spent weeks trying to work out why my small pieces of wood had odd angles. Then when I took a straight edge to the surface... OH ,,,,MY,,,, WORD. On close examination the top was like a roller coaster.
Hence the melamine, which is as flat as my cast iron bandsaw table.


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## hawkeyefxr (16 Apr 2017)

I made mine out of 1 inch ply, they need to be flat otherwise the wood catches as its fed through


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