A few years ago I received my router table for Christmas from my wife. It was a bit expensive and thus my mother, my wife's father and my wife went in together and got all the stuff. But ...

They are not me. Their intentions were fantastic. They got a table from a manufacturer. It had steel legs which you then 2x4'd into a table. The nice router table top you see, the router mounting plate as well as the very, very nice Incra precision jig system, they purchased all that also. But a steel legged, 2x4 table was not my dream. They did not realize that but understood. We took that back. From there I had to find plans and modify the found plans to make my own dream table. Also, I would need a router.

I wanted plenty of storage. I wanted an easy access on/off switch. I wanted my router area open as I do not have a "dust control" system nor any plans for one in the near future. I wanted to use the Incra jig system and thus modified plans to allow for the off center mounted top I had. As it ended up my plan, I got all the things I wanted.

The basic construction is basic cabinet construction. All went well and nothing terribly noteworthy about that. I did alter the drawers from the plan that I based them upon. The plan suggesting "my drawers" had three drawers but all three were router bit storage drawers (holes in the base to hold bits). I like that, but I did not want three - so - two of my drawers are bit storage. I made up the third drawer to hold miscellaneous items - wrenches, bit parts, whatever. I made the drawer with removable dividers so that it could change as my contents within the drawer changed. I ended up making two of these drawers. The first one I made I messed up. I did not "deduct" the width of the drawer slides within the cabinet and thus, it looked great but did not work. The discarded drawer is now another storage item within my shop. These things happen.

I added magnetic latches to my bottom doors to keep them closed. I also incorporated heavy duty adjustable legs beneath the cabinet as my shop is not always level and the router table periodically is moved for various reasons. I use top quality oak plywood and just applied natural sealer to that. The doors and drawers were painted as the edges were rounded over and the material used was plywood, thus leaving the natural finish would not have looked to good. It's just a shop tool - but I wanted it to look nice also. All cords are kept tidy by hooks I installed near the router cord as well as the power cord on the back of the table.

The finished product is very, very nice. I am enjoying it and the table allows me to now produce joints and edge treatments I could never attempt before. I am a happy woodworker.