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Router Planing Fixtures
- Thread starter Bruce Johnson
- Start date
Not sure how I missed this, but Nice work! I need to build one of these as well
I think all told, mine, which is 2' x 4' cost less than $50 to make.... My only regret is the little Home Depot "buckethead" shop vac I bought to power it died after 2 uses. I don't know if it was b/c it's crap or if the engine burned out from holding suction for so long...
I think I’ll make one smaller first like Dwizum’s given my current vacuum situation. 2’ Long by 9” wide. As a proof of concept. I’ll also make a lower railed piece for the router sled.
I generally keep it simple.
- a flat table that I don't mind drilling into
- two straight rails mounted close enough together for the router base plate
- a router base plate with a collar to keep inside then lines
I made a Vacuum board like Dwizum’s this weekend. Dimensions were 10” wide about 32”. Wanted it long enough to do fretboards.
I highly recommend them! Kind of a game changer for me - Similar to what Dwizum said regarding going thin and precise.
I was working on a few sets of book matched tops and noticed that the wood was starting to cup on the corners. As I approached 1/4” thick it began its motion.
The suction in the air wasn’t holding it down in those spots, so a little dab of hot glue gun did the trick in holding it.
Added bonus - you can used the vacuum table to hold the pieces in place for sanding operations as well
I highly recommend them! Kind of a game changer for me - Similar to what Dwizum said regarding going thin and precise.
I was working on a few sets of book matched tops and noticed that the wood was starting to cup on the corners. As I approached 1/4” thick it began its motion.
The suction in the air wasn’t holding it down in those spots, so a little dab of hot glue gun did the trick in holding it.
Added bonus - you can used the vacuum table to hold the pieces in place for sanding operations as well
I made a Vacuum board like Dwizum’s this weekend. Dimensions were 10” wide about 32”. Wanted it long enough to do fretboards.
I highly recommend them! Kind of a game changer for me - Similar to what Dwizum said regarding going thin and precise.
I was working on a few sets of book matched tops and noticed that the wood was starting to cup on the corners. As I approached 1/4” thick it began its motion.
The suction in the air wasn’t holding it down in those spots, so a little dab of hot glue gun did the trick in holding it.
View attachment 4142002 View attachment 4142003 View attachment 4142004 View attachment 4142005
Added bonus - you can used the vacuum table to hold the pieces in place for sanding operations as well
I agree, Vacuum boards can be quite versatile!
I want to mention that 2groggy is showing a great example of a basic, sturdy router planing fixture. Two aluminum angles screwed down to a wood base board, with the wood blank screwed down between them. A large base on the router, with a collar for safety.
If you are building one of these from scratch, get two 4' long pieces of 2" x 2" x 1/8" aluminum 6063 angle. A base board of 3/4" MDF or tight plywood, 18" x 48". Drill holes in the aluminum angle every 10" or so. Drill a series of holes in the base board so you can position the angles at different spacings.
With 2" depth and up to 14" wide x 48" long, you can do most router planing jobs needed for building basses. And the fixture stands up in the corner for storage.
so this is my router planer... there are many like it but this one is mine...
so couple things that work for me on this:
adjustable height... allows me to setup and plane various thicknesses pretty easily. I have actually used this planer jig to put a 4 deg slope on a les paul for the neck join. that's about as far as one can tweak it w/o messing up the bolts.
the inserts... I built a plan for this (below) as I wanted to get away from using wood screws to secure things... so I tried to setup such that it would fit the most common body shapes and have an area for doing necks. the swivel clamps are not only fast... but they hold very well.
get a lot of mileage out of this jig. I have a radius jig that would ride the rails and allow me to radius anything from bodies to fretboards. I use it to do binding on necks... I use it to plane the back of my neck to (almost) final thickness... then use it to ride a chamfer bit to do my first facet.
anywho, I'll shut up now.
so couple things that work for me on this:
adjustable height... allows me to setup and plane various thicknesses pretty easily. I have actually used this planer jig to put a 4 deg slope on a les paul for the neck join. that's about as far as one can tweak it w/o messing up the bolts.
the inserts... I built a plan for this (below) as I wanted to get away from using wood screws to secure things... so I tried to setup such that it would fit the most common body shapes and have an area for doing necks. the swivel clamps are not only fast... but they hold very well.
get a lot of mileage out of this jig. I have a radius jig that would ride the rails and allow me to radius anything from bodies to fretboards. I use it to do binding on necks... I use it to plane the back of my neck to (almost) final thickness... then use it to ride a chamfer bit to do my first facet.
anywho, I'll shut up now.
Funny, that's nearly exactly what I built, and I can confirm it works very well. Doing a quick search, I guess I never posted these in this thread, so if anyone is interested, here you go:
I'm starting to really appreciate the style where the sled is essentially stationary and the router slides across it side to side, versus the router being bolted to a wide sled that slides side to side across the rails as a unit. I have the latter style and my problem is that it needs a lot of clearance side-to-side for planing wider pieces, because as you slide all the way to one side, you're essentially hanging half the sled's length out past the side rail. For any of you that have the "floating" style, are there any disadvantages? I went with the non-floating style out of an assumption that it would be more stable. It's definitely stable, but I don't know that the floating style isn't.
The only thing I would do for the floating style would be to mount a square bottom to the router to prevent tipping on the narrow rails.
I was worried about that when I built mine, but in reality it takes so little force to move the router around that I have not had any issues with mine wanting to tip.
It probably depends on how aggressive one is planing, right? Apart from that, you just need the "sled rails" (to reference your pic) to be strong enough not to bow/sag...
Exactly, and I'm using this for finishing work not taking huge amounts off. In reality, you need more power than a handheld router can produce if you want to take of huge amounts of material quickly anyway.
And yes, if the sled rails are too floppy there will be problems with getting things even. Mine move an insignificant amount (a few mil maybe?) so nothing I have had an issue with. Again, it really only has to hold up the weight of the router. I am not pressing down on the router at all when planing.
What are people using for a flattening bit? My Freud 1/2" Flat bottom dado router bit does a very nice job, but it gets old on anything wider than a neck. With overlapping passes, it takes a while. I think Bruce mentioned a 1-1/4" diameter Freud? I'm seeing bits online in the $30 range, some with 3 blades, some with 4. Any recommendations?
I used a cheap 2" spoilboard bit. It takes off a lot of material pretty quickly and provides a decent finish.
Yes, here’s that bit https://www.woodworkingshop.com/pro...bHscd3vW1Let3Du9JlZoAGKfsKXj-ZphoCBywQAvD_BwE
I’ve got 2 on hand.
The popular Freud bit is the 16-106 for 1/4" shaft or 16-108 for 1/2" shaft. They're about $20 and really good!
Is there a need for a 1/4" planing bit? I would think most of the time you'd prefer to have a bigger shaft
I didn't even know they made that thing in a 1/4" version! No thank you, 1/2" for me. 
