Spice Rack  6                                                10-2023

 

Making A Router Fixture Continued

 

Here I'm scribing a mark on all my shelves using a height gage. Now I realize that most woodworks don't own a tool like this, but I happen to be a machinist and don't know any other way to put a mark on a work piece that would be this accurate. Again, this is overkill, but I happen to own these tools so why not use them.
 

 

 

Here is what my scribed line looks like, which should be easy to line up with my pencil line that's on my fixture.
 

 

 

Here is my work piece clamped in my fixture so you can get an idea what I'm doing.
 

 

 

This should give you a good idea how I'm lining up everything. It's a little dark inside this area so I'll be using my flashlight and magnifying glass to make sure I'm lined up correctly. This worked just as I envisioned it would, so I'm happy so far.
 

 

 

Here is my new router bit that I'll be using. It's 3/4" diameter with a top bearing. Most template router bits have a bottom bearing but I couldn't use that kind with this fixture.
 

 

 

Well now...that's not going to work like I wanted.

See how the bearing is right at the top of my fixture? And see how much the router bit is sticking out from the bottom of it? I want to take 1/8" deep cuts, not the entire cut all at once. I'm not going to use it like this because it would take too big of a cut, so I need to come up with a fix here.
 

 

 

I did some measuring and I need 3/8" more material added to the top of my fixture to fix my problem. I found a piece that would work so I put it through my planer and brought it down to 3/8" thickness. Then I cut the width and length to what I needed.
 

 

 

Next I fastened it to my clamp plate. Now I need to cut out the area that you see below so it matches what I have underneath it.
 

 

 

I still had this setup on my milling machine, and a few minutes later I had both slots cutout. Now it's time to to some testing.
 

 

 

I added some 2" X 6" blocks to the bottom so it's at a more comfortable height for me to use.  
 

 

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