A New Router Table for Dummies

Shop-built router table

One of our researcher staff here at the Antisocial Network claims that his greatest joy is finding posts by someone about whom one can say, to quote Bob Dylan, "...It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."¹ One repeat DotD that he thinks fits that lyric perfectly is eHow's favorite Christian therapist, Lacy Enderson. Lacy's contributions to the stupidification of the internet are manifest, particularly in the realms of woodworking and construction where she's picked up seven awards. Here for her fourth visit in the Power Tools category are Lacy's instructions on "How to Build a Router Table."

Enderson, as usual, demonstrates total ignorance of her topic in the DMS-required² introduction, when she claims that

"A router is a woodworkers [sic] dream. Routers are used to cut, create and design wood. Having a good router table is essential to good quality router work..."

...all of which immediately tripped our research team's bullshit detector. Routers aren't used to "create wood": according to Joyce Kilmer, "Only God can make a tree" (surprisingly, right up Lacy's religiosity alley, we think). And a router table is of no use for plunge routers, only fixed-base versions. Lacy, Lacy, Lacy... We won't go into excruciating detail about Enderson's measurements or other faux pas, except to point out some of the stupider passages.

• Lacy says to make the top of the table with "(1) 1/8-inch plywood, 3 by 2 feet": is she kidding? Plywood that thin can neither support the weight of the router nor take the dadoes for T-Track and miter track...
• You're supposed to "Purchase an aluminum router plate which screws to the table once it is in place." Once what is in place? and why "aluminum"?
• For the miter track, "Make a groove 4 inches in from one side to the other, along the long side of the plywood. Use a router with a straight bit and a straight edge guide. Insert your miter track in the groove." How deep, Lacy? can you even find a miter track that will fit into your 1/8-inch plywood?
• For your fence, Enderson instructs you to "Cut out T-tracks also using a router. Make these grooves, one on each side of the shorter sides, also 4 inches in." This, even though her parts list includes the T-tracks that should mount in dadoes.
• The fence itself, Lacy says, "...comes with black knobs which will hold it in place." Super-cool, gotta love those "black knobs"! But wait: how does this work, again?
• And last but not least, Enderson says to "Attach the table top router to a workbench with clamps to hold it down..." Wait: isn't a router supposed to fit in underneath the table?

We're almost certain Enderson doesn't know what a router is, and – based on her instructions – it's clear that she has no idea how one uses a router in a table. Yet some equally clueless J-school graduate "edited" this content and okayed a fifteen-dollar payment to our Dumbass of the Day. It makes us wonder, some times, who should get the award: Lacy or the idiot who allowed this dreck to be published.

¹ "Idiot Wind," from Dylan's 1975 album "Blood on the Tracks"
² DMS: Demand Media Studios, parent of eHow. You can't spell "dumbass" without "DMS."

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