Shop-Made Router Lift

[Tony Falotico]

Has anybody studied the plans in the March 2004 American Woodworker for the shop-made router lift?

What do you think -- doable? Workable? Worth Trying?
Look's to me like it's worth a try. Any experience with this or something similar?

It's something I would like to have but not willing to pay the price of a store bought one.

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Tony
Yes! I looked at the plans and even started to think about how to adapt it to my situation.
But them I said - "What do I need it for?"
I usually lift the router out of the table and set the depth of cut with brass blocks.
Also I use a plunger router - PC 7539 - in the table now.
So make the bracket big enough so that you can change to a larger router, if you ever go that route. My first router is a Hitachi TR12 plunge.
I know that this will get the hair on someones neck - up, BUT how many times do you change the height of your bit in a series of cuts into different parts for your projects? You usually set one height - like 1/4 or 3/8 and leave it there for all your dados or rabbets or plows.
Well maybe you change from 3/8 to 1/4 for some reason.
But at least I'm the first reply. Now the rest of the folks that change the height of their bits can chastise me. But that will only hurt a little bit.
Daniel

[Christopher Stahl]

I was happy to see these plans when the issue arrived. I was planning to buy a Jessem, but now I think I going to build one.

chris

[Steve Beadle]

That article, IMHO, was the best part of that issue. I would like to make one for my router table, but since I have a big Makita plunge router, I think I would like to get one of those new PC fixed base routers to go in this shop-made lift. I think I would have to modify the plan quite a bit in order to make it fit the Makita plunge router.

If you build one of these for yourself, I would be interested to know how it comes out. The plan seems pretty straightforward, yet challenging for the degree of precision required. The instructions see very clear.

Good luck!

Steve

[JayStPeter]

Saw that issue at the newsstand and passed. I wasn't a big fan of last years "router issue". I already have a lift, but I like looking at good plans for making those sort of things. Is there anything interesting or different about the plan that may give me ideas for other things I want to build?

Jay

[Jim Stastny]

I also have the PC 7539 in my router table. For the most part pulling it out and setting the depth with blocks was the easiest way to go. However, there are times when one wants the ability to do some very fine adjusting, and times when you can't pull the router out of the table because you've just spent five minutes painfully setting the fence at a precise distance. At those moments a router lift offers a great help.

What I found to be the easiest thing to use is the Router Raizer. The Router Raizer is relatively inexpensive, easy to install, and offers precision (one turn of the crank = 1/16"). As I'm usually a build your own template, jig, fixture, etc. kind of guy, to endorse a product as a better alternative is unusual. A few years ago Fine Woodworking did a review on router lifters and gave the Raizer a positive endorsement.