For several years I've has a separate router table equipped with a Woodpecker Unilift. It has been fine until I needed to increase the size of the nearby saw outfeed table and space was just too tight.
The obvious answer was to inset the router in the outfeed table. Here is the table
X marks the spot for the centre of the router shaft. It is 370mm in from the front and 550mm to the left of the table saw. The router fence and saw fence will not get in each others way and is near enough to the front edge for comfortable working and in most cases the saw fence will not even need to be moved.
This is the template for the cutout for the through hole in the table.
First snag to be over come is that I've no clamps deep enough to secure the jig to the table. However there will also need to to be two grooves cut for the mechanism to secure the fence denoted by the two black lines.
I can screw into this zone as it will be cut away later.
Jig duly screwed down in four places and not going anywhere
For the first rough cut I used some thin spacer strips against the jig to cut a smaller aperture to start with.
As I sneak up on final size, the spacers are replaced with a steel rule around 0.75 mm thick.
Just as a check I put a witness marks in each corner to confirm the size of the cutout.
So far so good so I made a first pass just a few mm deep. X stayed nice and central.
It took a further three passes to plunge through the 40mm worktop. Then I gradually reduced the spacers to get final size with a light final cut.
The router plate sits on a 1/2" rebate with 3/4" radius (it's an American router plate hence the imperial dimensions) so I fitted a suitable bearing guided rebate cutter. I always like to take a fine cut on the final pass. To do this I wind a few turns of insulation tape round the bearing for the first cut and remove it for the final one.
The router plate has 8 levelling screws and I've found in the past that these gradually dig in to the rebate and especially with cr4p chipboard, this needs local reinforcement. I set in no 10 csk screws in the appropriate places to give a hard surface for the levelling screws to bear on.
Here is the router lift set in the table ready for levelling - after removing the jig.
Part 2 will be the fence holding slots.
Bob