I finally finished my New Yankee Workshop Deluxe Router Station today. It was a fun and practical project that I've been looking forward to using for some time. For the most part, it follows the plans to a tee except for a few enhancements suggested by fellow members:
Outside of those two modifications, I trimmed out the router table in Cherry instead of Oak.
- I used aluminum T-tracks in place of the T-bolts and slots for the fence adjustment and T-tracks on the fence instead of cutting T-slots with the router - I think it looks nicer and now I'm not concerned about durability.
- The dust collection was replaced with a 4 “dust collection port and Y-fitting instead of the 2” PVC fitting.
- I added 2.5" casters to the bottom to make it more portable.
The one frustration I had with this project was the drawers. Somewhere I made about a 1/16"-1/8" miscut, which caused some misalignment on the bottom drawers and the drawer glides. I was able to correct this fairly easily, but it still was a pain. In addition, if I were to do it over, I would have attached the drawer guides for the bit drawers after I did a dry fit and marked exactly where the guides should have gone. By not doing this and trusting everything was cut correct, the gaps in between each bit drawer aren't evenly spaced. It amazes me how a 1/16" miscut or mis-alignment can be so irritating. On the left side, I have a slightly larger gap between the taller bottom drawer and the 2nd to bottom drawer and on the right side, a slightly larger gap between the 2nd and 3rd drawer. Since it is a table meant for the shop, the slight imperfection doesn't really bother me, so I did not fix it.
As far as the laminate goes, I chose the particular Formica because Lowe's had the 4x8 sheet on clearance for $11. Again, it's a shop tool, so I wasn't too concerned with how it looks. - more concerned about how it performs In fact, I actually like the way the marble pattern turned out on the final product.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. I am so happy that I went with the 4" dust collection instead of the 2" as specified by the drawings. Who would have guessed that I ended up purchasing a dust collector 3 days after asking the question. I now have enough suction in both the fence and inside the table to suck a tennis ball through a tennis racket. It's so nice to work with MDF and not be covered head-to-toe in MDF dust.
If you are considering building a router table, the New Yankee Workshop Deluxe Router Station is a very fun and practical project to take on.