Thickness of MDF required to support router in table

[matthew]

Have only recently discovered this forum - it's great to have so many knowledgeable folk on hand and thanks for all your help so far, I hope I'm not using up all my support credits too fast

I'm making my first router table and on a bit of a mission to do it for £0 (or as closely as possible) so it will be pretty basic. Top will be MDF and am planning to just screw in the router from above, with a recess underneath to reclaim some of the height.

Any ideas/experience as to how much MDF I should leave to support it? It's a DW621, I think about 3kg? Does 5 or 6mm sound enough or am I on thin ice?

MTIA, Matthew

 

[PowerTool]

Personally,I think 6mm MDF is too flexible.
I used 6mm perspex,was about £2.50 for an A4 sheet.
Took the base off my router,copied the mounting holes and shape onto the perspex,and routed an A4 6mm recess into an old pub table (free!)
Cut a hole in the table to fit the router body through,made a fence from some 18mm MDF I had left over from another project.

So it's possible to make something functional and cheap :wink:

Andrew

 

[JFC]

I think you'll find your fixings will wear the MDF and become loose very quickly . Myself i have a 6mm steel plate bolting the router to the cast bed but then i do use large cutters and use it alot .
Maybe a sleeve to stop the hole in the MDF wearing could be a way to do it and then a bolt through the sleeve ?
Even better why not buy two universal bases from trend or axminster and mount one in the table bed and one on the underside giving you loads of fixing points if they do wear .

 

[matthew]

I used 6mm perspex,was about £2.50 for an A4 sheet.

Thanks for the reply, that definitely sounds like an option... what kind of shop did you find the perspex in?

Regards, Matthew

 

[PowerTool]

An e-bayshop,but I'm sure there are other places to find it.

Andrew

 

[seaco]

Any ideas/experience as to how much MDF I should leave to support it? It's a DW621, I think about 3kg? Does 5 or 6mm sound enough or am I on thin ice?

MTIA, Matthew

Hi Matthew

I used 18mm MDF when I made my first table and had a DW625 so it was a little heavier but after about six months it had at least 2mm deflection in the centre so I guarantee 6mm will not work...

If you want to make one on the cheap then if I where you I would laminate two pieces of 18mm MDF together...

 

[paulm]

Hi Matthew,

For quite a few years I used a simple home made table with my 621 which was made of 18mm mdf.

As you describe, I routed out a recess to just leave 6mm of depth in the mdf, but rather than let that 6mm take the weight of the router, I fastened the router in with a couple of simple plywood clamps fastened through the full depth 18mm mdf round the outside of the perimeter of the recess.

The clamps were just a strip of 6mm or so ply with a through groove routed down the middle, and then a knob screwed through the groove into a threaded sleeve fastener in the 18mm mdf. The ply strip was just positioned so that it overlapped the router base and tightened up to pull it tight to the 6mm mdf recess. A couple of those worked fine, but much easier to do than to describe !

This setup lasted many years and was quite satisfactory in use, although a little bit of a fiddle to mount and unmount the router.

A bit of wax polish on the mdf top and it works great.

Cheers, Paul

 

[orangetlh]

ive found an old piece of kichen worktop to be the best for my router top, i had a piece of 18mm MDF on it before and even with braces is sunk in the middle. The worktop hasnt moved anywhere and has the benefit of a nice hard slippy surface. You should be able to pick an offcut up from most kitchen fitters shops. As for what you bolt the router too i used a proper router insert as i tried a piece of 6mm acrylic sheet and it just bowed, even though it was only 200mm square. I would imagine a metal plate would be good, try a scrap yard or even see if your local engineer shop has some offcuts floating round.

 

[Lee Brubaker]

Hello Mathew:

I used 25mm MDF with arborite laminated to both top & bottom & sealed the edges of the table with paint. MDF is not totally inert & will move with temperatures. My table insert is 3/8" polycarbonate to which my Ryobi
RE600 3-1/4hp router is mounted. I think this router weighs about 6 kg. After about 6 years some sag developed in the top. In anticipation of this I had placed a couple of cross members at the top of the cabinet during construction to allow me to shim the top back to level.
While my router is heavier than yours, you may want to consider a husky top in the event that some time in the future you acquire a larger unit. I would also suggest that you use a table insert instead of simply attaching the router to the underside of the top. This will allow you to pop the router out of the table for handheld use getting double duty out of the router without requiring tools to remove the router from the table & for reinstalling. Good luck.

Lee

 

[matthew]

Thanks for everyone's tips! Took everything on board but had to compromise given that I was on a mission to build it for no money at all

Anyway, table is finished now and for £0 is quite decent! Managed to blag a bit of acrylic for the insert - my router is quite small so hopefully should be OK for a while. When I get my act together, will inflict a couple of pictures on the projects forum.

Matthew