Posted by on Oct 7, 2020 in Shop | Comments Off on Outfeed/Assembly Table, stage two

Outfeed/Assembly Table, stage two

Stage Two of the assembly table project is done!

The table, with holes in the top and drawers painted.

The hole-drilling went easy, mostly because I threw money at the problem — I bought a jig from Woodpecker that made it pretty easy. The jig consists of a template with 12 holes, three edge pins, three hole-sized plugs, a guide bushing, and a 1/2″ upcut spiral router bit. Basically, you start in a corner, using the edge pins to define your starting place, and route the first set of holes. Then you move the template, overlapping a row of your previous holes and using the hole-sized plugs to align the grid. It goes quickly, especially if you only route half the holes like I did.

Once I was done with the holes themselves, I went back over them with a chamfering bit to neaten them up and ran a random orbit sander over the tabletop. Now I have dog holes! If I want to install a front vise later (I might), I can line it up with the left two lines of holes. I can likewise mount a tail vise and line that up with the holes (less likely). Meanwhile, I have clamps and bench cookies and stops that I can use right now to hold work.

While I had the paint out, I went ahead and painted the drawer fronts. They didn’t really need it, but it gave the table a splash of color. Stage Three will be the roll-out base for my HDPE table.

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