Izzy Swan: novel take on a router table...

[Eric The Viking]

https://youtu.be/OvJEygZDbbQ

Izzy posted this (above) a couple of days ago. There are quite a few issues I can see, for example guarding and wooden bits to the mech that will wear or swell up with moisture, but some things I really like, for example a pivoting fence, and the tilting mechanism.

Someone will immediately pipe up and say how horrid this is, but.... "I don't get out much" so-to-speak, and I think it's nice to see lateral thinking can still be applied to a well-established machine concept.

As-is, it wouldn't work in my very damp garage/workshop, but the ideas are interesting and it could be tweaked to be useful. I'm sure, too, if I searched YouTube well enough, I'd find other ideas of equal value. Matthias Wandel's stuff immediately springs to mind, but I was specifically thinking about a general-purpose router table.

Discuss?

E.

 

[MikeG.]

I use a fence pivoted at one end of one of my wooden router tables, and it works really well.

I like the idea of sliding the router back and forth, but if you have that ability, why have a moveable fence? Just fix in a permanent fence, and move the router. The difficulty with the moveable router idea is depth adjustment via any sort of router lift.

The tilting table is really interesting............but bloody hell........those cutters being exposed, unguarded, above the workpiece is just ridiculous.

Hate the way the guy picks up a power tool to do simple hand-tool jobs.

 

[Eric The Viking]

To be fair, he does say there's more to come, including DX and guarding, but I do agree about the power tool thing - there's a moment in the video when he picks up an oscillating cutter, just to flush cut a batten sticking out of the side of the cab. Made me wince a bit.

I also like an end-pivoting fence though - I've used one for years

E.

 

[rafezetter]

I've seen a tilting router bed before and was being touted as a great way to use shaped cutters to cut profiles other than the cutter shape by using just a portion of it to get interesting beading shapes rather than going to the expense of having a bespoke shaped cutter made.

His coment about using it to make a panelled door section though is a bit odd, because I've seen people using jigs on their tablesaw to achieve the same effect, but I guess it's just another option.

Never seen the end pivoting fence though - seems a better, simpler way for a homemade setup than the sliding option, but also limited to depth for things like dadoes.