Router Placement on rotuer Table

[hpetty]

Okay, I'm following Uncle Nohm's Router Table plans pretty closely but I've run into a question on placement of the Router Plate. The plans call for the center of the plate to be 10 3/4; from the front edge of a 24 1/2 Table. Is there any reason (other than leaving room for the fence base) to leave more room behind the table than in front? I would have thought you would want more working room in front.I'm using a variation to the fence design and do not need as much room behind the fence for the base. But before I changed the table around and cut a dado for the miter gauge I wanted to make sure I wasn't making a mistake. Do any of you have some input as to placement of the router plate? Is there any reason I need space to the rear of the plate, other than what is needed for the fence base and DC?

 

[Vanilla Gorilla]

The only reason I can think of to have a decent amount of room to the backside of the table would be if you wanted to be able to rout grooves or dadoes in wider material. That would give you the room to back up the fence a proper amount. If I remember correctly, the design of Norm's table didn't account for using an Incra jig or anything like that for fence placement, so that's out as a reason.

I am also thinking of building a "lynn's jig" for my router, so with that in mind I had designed my table with the plate only slightly forward of center, and it has worked out great for me.

 

[hpetty]

Thanks for the response and welcome to the site Marco.

Every link I've tried to follow to Lynn's Jig has gone nowhere. Do you happen to have a link that is still active, or a copy of the plans for the jig?

I am also thinking of building a "lynn's jig" for my router, so with that in mind I had designed my table with the plate only slightly forward of center, and it has worked out great for me.

 

[DaveO]

I went dead center with my plate. But I'm a rebel without a clue, and have no reasoning to back-up my decision, other than I couldn't decide on which got more room.

Dave

 

[McRabbet]

Thanks for the response and welcome to the site Marco.

Every link I've tried to follow to Lynn's Jig has gone nowhere. Do you happen to have a link that is still active, or a copy of the plans for the jig?

Try this link. There is also a PDF file with instructions on this site.

Rob

 

[Steve D]

The reason to put the plate off center is so that it is closer to you for typical applications of routing a profile on narrow stock but also give you the ability to work from the back side with a much larger work surface for doing big pieces like rasied panel doors. It is really a preference thing based upon the type of work you do most. If you won't have access to tthe back of the table when using it, there is no benefit to offsetting unless you offset to the back. The drawback to doing that is that you are reaching farther for all other work and it is more challenging to use featherboads, etc from the front.