Aha! You are now among the ranks of the Ratters of the World. :twisted:
I assume that having the Rat in your hands helped to clarify my drawings. You might have seen my drawing in the manual which is the more complex over engineers version. You'll be fine with the simpler one and you might decide to make the box version with your Rat. Wouldn't that be novel?
As to your questions, there is a little orange button that fits into a hole to limit the north-south travel That will keep you from running the bit into something as you slide it back. As far as plunging into the aluminum, I guess there isn't anything to prevent that. I would install the raising plates if using a bit that is long enough to bottom out on Alu.
Admittedly router mounting isn't well described in the manual. Part of the problem stems from the wide variety of router base designs. Certain bases need to mounted farther aft than others. The fore and aft position isn't critical as long as the router bit won't hit anything when it is shifted fully north or south.
Centering is important but even that isn't as critical as you might think.
Make sure you can insert the Centre Plate when the router is attached. If you don't, bad words might come forth from your mouth.
Have fun with it. Get some softwood to play with and make some stuff. I would advise you to have a pad or paper and a pencil handy for taking notes. A bevel gauge will be useful for dovetails. A square for setting things up properly is a must. Mark up your wood pieces for testing so you can keep track of which faces are out when you're cutting. It helps you get the hang of things.
G'luck.
Dave
