Mods to Woodrat (already!!)

Anonymous · 24 Apr 2006

Jake":1jq3fy1g said:
Will the router base take round rod, rather than hexagonal or whatever? If so, couldn't you taper just the end of the rod and just drill the bracket just right for the main rod diameter, so it kind of located itself.

Nice idea Jake. The installed rod is round section.

SketchUp Guru · 24 Apr 2006

You could also put a chisel point on the end of the rod and a matching V-groove on the bracket. Or you could use a bolt and nut.

Great work Tony.

crazylilting · 17 Oct 2009

Hi Tony great idea. I have a question about the vernier modification. Which one did you use? Did you just strip it down, how did you get the arms off etc. and where did you find the little brackets to attach it to the woodrat.

Thanks a bunch

Bgoat · 15 Jun 2022

Anonymous said:
Rat owners might find this rather long post of interest

Yep, as I posted earlier, I am very impressed with the Woodrat but think it is lacking an important component - graduated scales.

I really don't want to make little bits of wood to place between stops and cut bits out of plastic before the wood :roll:

The requirements for longitudinal scale is easily solved with an old (horrible) aluminium ruler that has been in the workshop for ages and cost very little from B&Q. I cut it on the bandsaw, glued it to a piece of ply and fitted it underneath as the T-track is there but also as it allows me to use the rear edge of the clamp black as a 'pointer' where it overhangs the ruler.

The requirement for the crosswise scale is for it to be easily 'zeroed' in different places to make cuts easy to set up.

For instance, for a tenon, I simply subtract the tenon width from the wood width, halve this, and that is the setting I need.
I push the stationary router bit up against the rear of the wood, zero the scale, wind the wood away from the cutter, and then use the scale to set the cut to my calculated value and take the cut.
I then push the stationary router bit up against the front of the wood, zero it, wind wood out of the way, and then push the router away from me until it reaches (minus) the value I calculated and then take the cut.
This takes less time than it took to type or for you to read it. I can easily set the router to a position within 0.1mm which is more than adequate.

Longitudinal scale

First, I ripped the 'orrible ruler.

Then I glued it to some ply - finally, those car boot sale clamps come in useful

I drilled 4 holes for the 8mm bolts to fit in the T-track with wing nuts for easy adjustment.

In place - note that the clamp overlaps the scale providing a ready pointer for positioning accurately. Despite how the picture looks, the ruler face is flush with the front of the rat.

Crosswise scale

I considered a standard vernier but decided against it as Axminster sell a vernier for the job for a couple of quid more than the standard vernier costs and to be honest, using a standard vernier looks like a bit of a bodge to me.

However, the bracket supplied by Axminster did not fit and I had to re-drill the holes. Also, the supplied screws were too long and I had to grind them down :roll:

I used the DW625 guide fence rail and ground a small flat on it before drilling 3.2mm and tapping 4mm

I decided against mounting it on the ali guide rails as I want space for stops etc. and so mounted it on the Phenolic plate. This is slippery, so centre punch first.

I had to cut down some 4mm bolts for mounting to the plate

Here it is mounted with the cut-off 4mm bolts. I needed to place two 4mm washers between the rod and the vernier's bracket to give nice alignment and smooth movement.

And at the other end of the travel

To cut full width trenches etc., I will simply remove the bolt holding the bracket to the rod - 10 second job

Hi Tony, Just what I'm looking for with my WR5. Unfortunately, the images don't show up when I view your post: are they still available as I'd like to adopt your modification if I may.

Regards, Phil