Luthiery Laboratories

I have several jigs I made to fit my full-sized DeWalt router. That machine is a beast for building furniture and stuff, but it is clumsy overkill for routing neck pockets and truss rods. So I got the idea to make a base plate that will adapt the little router to the jigs I made. Simple - just a 6" square; there it is on the left. The material is a piece of 1/4" phenolic that I had laying around for years. Phenolic resin is a plastic that is so hard and stiff it is more like metal. It is perfect for router bases and other fixtures, but somewhat hard to work. To drill the big hole in the center, I had to shift the drill press to its lowest gear, and cool the bit with water.

Then I got another bright idea - if I had a second router base, I could set up each one and not have to muck around with a screwdriver. After a little searching, I realized that a used router would cost less than a new base, so now I have two of them. The only thing missing was the 17mm collet wrench, and I had a spare one of those from a Harbor Freight tool that died. What's faster than quick-change? No change. Now I can set them up for a particular job and leave them.

The narrow little base that comes with these routers is near-useless - just try to hold that straight with half jutting out into space. The long clear base on the right is much better for edge routing, while the new base is better for interior routing. You can see how the polycarbonate needed reinforcing, it is not nearly as strong as the phenolic. Clear polycarbonate is good for templates.

Of course, you don't need multiple routers to use multiple bases, you can switch them out with a little twiddling of a screwdriver. But custom router bases like this make the tool much more useful and precise. I can clamp the long one in a vise upside down and use it as a miniature router table. I also have attachments for underneath, like edge followers for routing binding slots. StewMac even copied this design.

I also have my old Ryobi router, which is permanently fixed inside my router table. Add in the Dremel as a micro-router, and that makes five. Any more, and I will surely be in violation of some international treaty.