Steve Maskery
Established Member
Here you go Jim:
You will remember that when I fitted the T-track to my new router table top I was a bit stingy with the length. This has been bugging me a bit, so I took advantage of Rutlands' sale and bought some T-track.
The problem was that when I fitted the first pair, I didn't just screw them in, I used Gripfill, too. That was a bit of a mistake, now that I wanted to pull them out. What to do? Well the first thing to do is to phone Eric the Viking Who Knows Everything, who told me that Xylene (which I don't have) dissolves Gripfill (and pretty much everything else it comes into contact with) and WD40 (which I do have), will soften it. Might be worth a try. Half and hour later it looked like this
That was yesterday and today, when the WD40 had dried off somewhat, it didn't look anywhere near as bad. Certainly not ruined.
I had thought that it would be pretty much impossible just to extend the groove at exactly the same width, I was expecting to have to use the wider mitre track, but now that I have my nice new fine adjuster I could get it right to the nearest nanometre.
I do like it when I get it right.
I also want a mitre track along the front, so that I can make my finger-joint jig again.
The corners of my RT top are rounded and there is the danger of the router fence slipping at the end, so I fitted a longer piece to the fence, so that I could exert pressure in the appropriate way to avoid that.
And so I think it really is finished
The rise and fall mechanism is built in to the router, and I use a socket in my cordless drill for quick up and down. For more precise adjustment I had been using a socket on the end of a hand-held shaft, like a screwdriver. Unfortunately, the other day, the handle, which is a very brittle plastic, broke and I was left with just the metal shaft. So today I cut that down, put an M6 thread on the end and fitted a Bristol lever.
All I need now is to make a dial to show the change in height. I believe that one full turn is 1.5mm, so 240 degrees of arc is 1mm. My previous one was a 1/16" pitch and I had one for that. It translated as 0.1mm = 27 degrees, IIRC. This one will be 0.1mm = 24 degrees. It's easy enough to do with Sketchup and the Bristol lever acts as a pointer as well as a handle.
You will remember that when I fitted the T-track to my new router table top I was a bit stingy with the length. This has been bugging me a bit, so I took advantage of Rutlands' sale and bought some T-track.
The problem was that when I fitted the first pair, I didn't just screw them in, I used Gripfill, too. That was a bit of a mistake, now that I wanted to pull them out. What to do? Well the first thing to do is to phone Eric the Viking Who Knows Everything, who told me that Xylene (which I don't have) dissolves Gripfill (and pretty much everything else it comes into contact with) and WD40 (which I do have), will soften it. Might be worth a try. Half and hour later it looked like this
That was yesterday and today, when the WD40 had dried off somewhat, it didn't look anywhere near as bad. Certainly not ruined.
I had thought that it would be pretty much impossible just to extend the groove at exactly the same width, I was expecting to have to use the wider mitre track, but now that I have my nice new fine adjuster I could get it right to the nearest nanometre.
I do like it when I get it right.
I also want a mitre track along the front, so that I can make my finger-joint jig again.
The corners of my RT top are rounded and there is the danger of the router fence slipping at the end, so I fitted a longer piece to the fence, so that I could exert pressure in the appropriate way to avoid that.
And so I think it really is finished
The rise and fall mechanism is built in to the router, and I use a socket in my cordless drill for quick up and down. For more precise adjustment I had been using a socket on the end of a hand-held shaft, like a screwdriver. Unfortunately, the other day, the handle, which is a very brittle plastic, broke and I was left with just the metal shaft. So today I cut that down, put an M6 thread on the end and fitted a Bristol lever.
All I need now is to make a dial to show the change in height. I believe that one full turn is 1.5mm, so 240 degrees of arc is 1mm. My previous one was a 1/16" pitch and I had one for that. It translated as 0.1mm = 27 degrees, IIRC. This one will be 0.1mm = 24 degrees. It's easy enough to do with Sketchup and the Bristol lever acts as a pointer as well as a handle.
