Can you adapt a fixed base dedicated AUK router to UJK Axminster router lift

[Peter Sefton]

Hi Laurence

I understand your desire to want to reuse your existing UJK lift and have received drawings from a forum member trying to help you re-engineering your lift to suit.

I am very pleased you would like to buy one of my AUKTools routers but want to ensure you end up with the best solution, I would rather lose a sale than over promise and have an unhappy customer. I see several problems, some of which are below.

My AUKTools router weighs almost 5Kgs, and I think its too heavy for the 6mm UJK top plate, we do not sell any router plates or lifts with 6mm thick plates, my fear is it will bend.

I also do not know what weight router the UJK lift is designed to accommodate but the components are not comparable with JessEm or Incra lifts.

Slinging the router under the fixing plate will cut off the airflow out of the router and cause overheating, cutting a larger hole in the UJK mounting plate may weaken it.

Round bodied routers within our Incra and JessEm lifts allow for cutter change above the table, you will lose this feature. You could buy a Muscle Chuck from us to try and over come this issue but our AUK ER20 collects are fantastic! You will just be throwing more money at the lift problem.

I suggest you reconsider your plans, I can not recommend you proceed.

Cheers

Peter

 

[Spectric]

Maybe search these forums as router topics are fairly common and you will see that the UJK lift is not the most highly rated, the fact it uses a more complicated chain system for it's lift is not doing it any favours and the likes of Jessem / Woodpecker etc use a heavy router plate and substantial columns with really smooth linear bearings and what you end up with is the complete package with everything well engineered to work as one. We have all been along a route where we put a plunge router under a worktop, then go to a woodworking show and end up with a progression to something better but if I knew what I know now I would have saved a small fortune. Then someone comes along and throws the spindle moulder into the mix and what was planed is back onto the drawing board. There is always a market for secondhand stuff as others follow the same path, we seem to have a touch of lemming in us in that we like to learn from direct experience even if it is costly and causes a lot of hassle !

 

[Chief Sawdust Maker]

I have watched this thread with interest from the start as I need to upgrade my current router table set up in my workshop.
The following ramblings are my opinions I am sure many will disagree and that's fine, my background is of a time severed precession engineer before moving into production engineering, more recently I have set up and run a small woodworking workshop producing one off items and also production runs of items sometimes in batches of up to 1,000
The Axminster lit is a well engineered well made piece of equipment and solves the old problem of accurate above table adjustment of a tradition type of router my personal solution to over come the issue many years ago was to install a small scissor type lift under my router table using the lift to raise the cutter to the required height, I still have that set up some 20 years on which is used on certain items and it still works fine. With this there is no loss of cut depth as the base of the router is mounted to the table above table changing of the cutter is possible using a set of cranked spanners.

In order to overcome accurate depth setting a number of manufacturers developed tradition plunge type routers that could be used freehand but could also be mounted under a table and by drilling a small access hole in the table above table height adjustment was possible using a crank handle with a long shaft, this system is still available on several routers that are still sold today and is a non complicated method of achieving above table adjustment

A round bodied router motor is streets ahead of using a traditional router in a table situation they a generally quieter usually weigh slightly more as they don't have to be handled and when mounted in a lift table are more rigid and accurate due to the engineering of the lift and also construction of the router motor (I actually think that they should be referred to a spindles as that's what they are)

On a side note I run a CNC router in my workshop and on initial commissioning I purchased a well known brand of router (yellow in colour) within a week I had upgraded to a 1.5kw water cooled inverter controlled spindle, runs all day with out and issues of getting hot much quieter than the router and way more rigid

As I said at the start of this post (thanks to anyone who is still with me) I am needing to upgrade my current router table set up. I recently visited Peter Sefton's workshop to look at the AUK motor and Incra Clean Sweep lift and associated inserts and box and I would say without doubt it is extremely well engineered, accurate, rigid, quiet and in my opinion the best solution to build a router table that is available in the UK

Have I purchased one? In a word no.
Why you may ask (if your still reading this) simple because my business cash flow just at the moment wont allow me to, its not just the cost of the motor and lift but to achieve all that I need/want too with the upgrade but the other items take me over available cash so I will continue using my substandard but adequate current set up to earn profit to achieve the purchase.

My rule for purchasing machines and equipment for my business and also in life in general is buy once buy right & buy cheap buy twice.
Taking on board Peter's comments and concerns with mounting the motor in the UJK lift it would be like fitting a John Deer diesel tractor engine engine in a Formula One Car. Formula one car well engineered does what it is supposed to and is designed to be powered with a petrol / hybrid engine. John Deer tractor well engineered lots of horse power and torque does what it is designed for and powered by a diesel does what it supposed to. Put the car engine in the tractor or put the tractor engine in the car, both will need a large amount of engineering to achieve but in theory could be made to fit and run but would not be fit for purpose, and both engines and vehicles would most likely be beyond economic sense to try to return them to an original state.

To me the only way is to decide if the preferred method of spinning a piece of carbide very fast is either a traditional router or the AUK motor? I would suggest that the AUK motor is the superior route and therefore the only option is to mount it in a lift that it was designed and made for. Extract what funds can be got from the UJK lift and enjoy a the right tool for the job

 

[scholar]

@Lol This thread may help you work something out - the router is I guess the same basic design as the AUK one (I haven’t looked) and the UJK lift will be different to my old Jessem lift, but they share the feature that they are designed for plunge routers.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/my-router-table-and-new-router-motor.93439/
Since I posted that write-up many years ago, I modified the airflow and dust extraction somewhat (I had a problem with the router failing due to dust building up in the optical speed sensor - the problem was inherent in the design using an optical sensor, not due to my setup - it got replaced foc by Rutlands with an upgraded design that uses a magnetic sensor which has proved trouble-free). My modified setup involved placing the speed control on the outside of the cabinet (very handy) by soldering in some extension wires and completely separating the dust extraction airflow from the cooling airflow. I thought I had written up this further modification, but maybe not - here are a few pictures that might make sense. The router table is a joy to use - virtually dust-free and has operated trouble-free for the past 5 or 6 years.

Hope that is of interest.

Cheers

 

[Lol]

Thank you all for your replies & suggestions. I know that most of you wanted me to cut my losses and start again. I did give this some consideration but I also have the UJK Axminster cast iron table top and there was no way that I was giving that up. So a very kind member of this group has agreed to take on the modification. Without his generous offer of help I would have been stuck in a big hole. This is going to take a bit of time but I promise to come back to this thread that I started with I hope a good end result. One thing thing that I have learnt is that I should not have just jumped in and purchased a lot of expensive kit that I did not know a lot about. I am a woodworking newbie that is slowly learning from his mistakes.
Laurence

 

[Peter Sefton]

I look forward to seeing the results.

Cheers

Peter

 

[scholar]

Fixing the router to the lift is not actually complicated - you just need a frame to hold the body of the router motor and a means to fix that to the router mounting plate, whilst not compromising the functionality or motor cooling. I had a look at the UJK Router Elevator - the lift mechanism is a bit different to my Jessem, but the mounting plate is basically the same.

It is a woodworking machine, so the simplest solution is to make a frame from some readily available wood as per the mdf I used, but some laminated birch ply would be a good material. Yes, you need to be able to machine a circle reasonably accurately and drill some holes.

I found another photo of the fixing of the clamping frame to the mounting plate as below:

I think I spent longer working out the dust extraction and ensuring a clean dust-free cooling airflow for the motor. You can see most of the details in my earlier post, but another detail I did not mention was that I added some shaped cowls underneath each of the inserts fr the router table - these were just made from rainwater downpipe and hot-glued in place. As I said earlier, the whole setup is basically dust-free.

The annotations on the picture below help to explain the airflow. The motor cooling air setup was made up with some ventilation ducting bits I had lying around - the air is drawn in via the flexible pipe velcro-strapped to the motor casing, passes over the motor and out through the vent at the cutter end - this is then deflected away from the dust extraction path by the deflector detailed earlier and the cooling air passes through the cupboard in which the router body sits and is exhausted out. I haven't seen any other solution that works as well as this does.

Cheers

 

[Spectric]

One thing thing that I have learnt is that I should not have just jumped in and purchased a lot of expensive kit that I did not know a lot about.

Join the club, there are many that have done just that.

 

[Spectric]

It is a woodworking machine, so the simplest solution is to make a frame from some readily available wood as per the mdf I used,

That concept works for metal but not everything you need for woodworking can be made from wood !

 

[Lol]

Fixing the router to the lift is not actually complicated - you just need a frame to hold the body of the router motor and a means to fix that to the router mounting plate, whilst not compromising the functionality or motor cooling. I had a look at the UJK Router Elevator - the lift mechanism is a bit different to my Jessem, but the mounting plate is basically the same.

It is a woodworking machine, so the simplest solution is to make a frame from some readily available wood as per the mdf I used, but some laminated birch ply would be a good material. Yes, you need to be able to machine a circle reasonably accurately and drill some holes.

I found another photo of the fixing of the clamping frame to the mounting plate as below:
View attachment 155352View attachment 155353

I think I spent longer working out the dust extraction and ensuring a clean dust-free cooling airflow for the motor. You can see most of the details in my earlier post, but another detail I did not mention was that I added some shaped cowls underneath each of the inserts fr the router table - these were just made from rainwater downpipe and hot-glued in place. As I said earlier, the whole setup is basically dust-free.

View attachment 155354

The annotations on the picture below help to explain the airflow. The motor cooling air setup was made up with some ventilation ducting bits I had lying around - the air is drawn in via the flexible pipe velcro-strapped to the motor casing, passes over the motor and out through the vent at the cutter end - this is then deflected away from the dust extraction path by the deflector detailed earlier and the cooling air passes through the cupboard in which the router body sits and is exhausted out. I haven't seen any other solution that works as well as this does.

View attachment 155355

Cheers

Thank you Scholar for sharing the images. The person who is doing the modification said that you have given him some new ideas. Thanks also to everyone for their comments. This thread had a very slow start but has since gained a lot of momentum. As soon as I have any news I will post it if it is okay with the person doing the modification. Laurence

 

[Lol]

Hello All

Well, yesterday I collected my AUK router and Axminster router lift from Brian. He has done a fantastic job with the modification. I have no engineering background but I will do my best to describe the modification.

The Axminster router lift came with a base plate for mounting various plunge routers. This plate was of no use to me.

Two blocks of aluminium were purchased. These were;

152.4mm x 19mm aluminium flat bar. This was for the clamp.

6mm thick mill finish aluminium sheet. This was to replace the base plate.

A spacing was required between the two to allow air flow for ventilation. This meant that there would be a loss in height when the collet would need to be accessed above the table. This was then compensated for by the purchase of a collet extension. As it happened there was still enough height available without using the collet extension by using the cranked spanners.

I have attached some pics of Brian’s outstanding work. I think that you will agree that he has made a splendid job of it. Also a big shout to Bill as he made his milling machine available for the project.

A lot of you suggested that I should cut my losses and start again. Well thanks to Brian and his skill I did not have to do that. I am one happy newbie.

Laurence

 

[Inspector]

Were you to be charged for that work at the going rates cutting your losses and starting again would have looked good. You are very fortunate some forum members were there for you. Enjoy.

Brian and Bill. Well done.

Pete

 

[Lol]

Were you to be charged for that work at the going rates cutting your losses and starting again would have looked good. You are very fortunate some forum members were there for you. Enjoy.

Brian and Bill. Well done.

Pete

Hello Pete
I can't disagree with anything that you have said however I would prefer to think of it as triumph over adversity.
Laurence

 

[Peter Sefton]

Well done Laurence and Brian for making it work! One of the advantages of the round router in a lift is that no collet extension needs to be used, I suggest you remove the extension and just use the cranked spanners.

If you need any extra ring inserts check out JessEms as Axminster borrowed the design.

https://woodworkersworkshop.co.uk/jessem-tab-loc-insert-rings-10-piece-set/
Cheers

Peter

 

[phlppip]

Peter do you know if these would also fit the Rutlands router / lift combo as I am looking for some replacement rings?

 

[Peter Sefton]

Peter do you know if these would also fit the Rutlands router / lift combo as I am looking for some replacement rings?

Yes I believe they do, if not please return them undamaged for a full refund.

Cheers

Peter

 

[phlppip]

fantastic many thanks

 

[phlppip]

just for info Peter, the Jessem rings do not fit the Rutlands router insert so i will be sending these back in the next day or so.

 

[Peter Sefton]

just for info Peter, the Jessem rings do not fit the Rutlands router insert so i will be sending these back in the next day or so.

Sorry for my misinformation, thanks for trying them and letting me know.

Cheers

Peter

 

[Spectric]

When you measure the Jessem inserts they are like the Kreg ones in tha they are an imperial size, also I have found the Kreg rings in the Kreg plate were tighter and locked in place whereas the Jessem rings in a prestige lift do not, they keep coming loose.