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Adjustable Router Planning Jig


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Hi there....

I needed a router planning Jig, not only to plane level, but especially at an angle (for the tenon area)... so I read some posts and did some research but most of the planning jigs I found where for planning level or at an angle but not both. Most of them sre made of MDF which has a problem that it flexes when you put pressure on the router.

I came up with the following solution, which gives me all the flexibility I need and non of the problems I saw with other jigs...

I made the base out of thick (2,3 cm; about 1 inch) wood (MDF) of 50x60cm ( approx 20x23 inch). In the corners I put in M12 bolts of about 10cm (approx 0,5 x 4 inch) and put a nut on every bolt. I used aluminum L profiles to put over the bolts (resting on the nut). I made the holes in the L-profile wide enough so the L profile can be put over the bolts at an angle..

From the same L Profiles I made a router carriage... and it doesn't flex at all!!! On all the parts that glide I put on the smoothest tape I could find....

In the picture below the jig is set to plane level.

planingjig2.jpg

By moving the nuts up or down I can either plane level or at an angle...(the angle in the picture is about 3 degrees... ) great thing is that I can just measure the angle and make the necessary adjustments, or I can calculate the height difference between the left and right side of the L profile for a given angle and make the adjustments accordingly....

planingjigangle.jpg

It took me about 1,5 hours to make and I'm pretty pleased with the end-result... !! What do you guys think of this set-up?

Grz Arjan

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If you want those parts to glide apply a coat of butchers wax on the metal (or two or four or seven) and buff it (by hand or machine) a long, long time. I hate to be over promoting the stuff but it is really useful stuff.

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FYI, David Myka's neck angle jig is very similar to this, just made with wood, and would be a cool add-on for yours in terms of addition functionality. I may incorporate a few aspects of this design into the one I'm planning/building. Thanks for posting!

Re: sliding, you can get HDPE slick slidey plastic stuff from places like WOodcraft and Axminster (only sure about Axminster), some with self-adhesive backing, that's designed to slide along nicely.

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FYI, David Myka's neck angle jig is very similar to this, just made with wood, and would be a cool add-on for yours in terms of addition functionality. I may incorporate a few aspects of this design into the one I'm planning/building. Thanks for posting!

Re: sliding, you can get HDPE slick slidey plastic stuff from places like WOodcraft and Axminster (only sure about Axminster), some with self-adhesive backing, that's designed to slide along nicely.

Mattia,

Yes it's similar, but it's made for making the neckpocket and not for planing level... but more functionallity is always welcome ... So it got me thinking, I'm building a Les-Paul style guitar with a neck tenon, so it's a little bit different as far as the neck-pocket goes... But mayby I could use the jig (with some alterations) for lining up the neck and holding the neck-tenon template in place... so thanks for tip!

Grz Arjan

Edited by ArieBombarie
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Looks good. Keep an eye on the nuts and bolts whilst using it though - this kind of jig is very likely to suffer from vibration, and the nuts may creep loose and allow the angle or height to change whilst you're working.

Yep, I see vibration as a potential problem too. So I will either add a second nut. or I will add some tape (the one you use on gas- or water-pipes) on the tread of the bolts, or I will use self thightning nuts (the ones with a rubber ring in it)... I will have to test this out... I'll be posting my findings on the vibration issue..

If you want those parts to glide apply a coat of butchers wax on the metal (or two or four or seven) and buff it (by hand or machine) a long, long time. I hate to be over promoting the stuff but it is really useful stuff.

I considered that, and I could use it on the side rails, but I don't want to use it on the router carriage as it will probably leave stains on my routerbase which can be transfered to the wood when I use the router without this jig....

Grz Arjan

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Looks good. Keep an eye on the nuts and bolts whilst using it though - this kind of jig is very likely to suffer from vibration, and the nuts may creep loose and allow the angle or height to change whilst you're working.

+1 on that. Nyloc nuts work nicely, but may still become loose over time and extended use. Popping a wingnut over and under each of the height adjusting bolts and popping a rubber washer under the top nut will lock everything nicely. Perhaps overkill, but it's always better to smash a nut with a sledgehammer.

Very nice work.

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I looked into vibration problem... First I tried to use locking nuts (see picture on the left), but they didn't work as they fit to tight, it turned the bolt when I tried to put them on... I removed some of the plastic ring, but that didn't work either..

So I put on thread-tape (which you use on gas fittings) and added an extra nut and this seems to be the answer. The nuts won't slide up and down easily because of the tape and the extra nut keeps the first one in it's place.... (see picture on the right)

selflokkingnut-1.jpgfinalset-up.jpg

Maybe there will be some wear and tear of the tape over time, but it is replaced in about 15 seconds, so no worries there....

Grz Arjan

Edited by ArieBombarie
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Tape is cheaper than a new workpiece :-D

I really should get around to purchasing the steel rails for my jig. So expensive.

I use aluminium instead of steel, mainly because its much lighter.. I use four L profiles of 1 meter each (3x3cm), which set me back € 30 (that's about 24 UK-pounds) in total...

I used the jig today to plane the topwood on my guitar, and it worked like a charm ... :D

Grz Arjan

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What about getting or making a set of spacers in common sizes? I assume you're dialing in the final thickness using the router anyway, so having something that's known to be an inch, or a half inch, or 40mm, just throw one of those (or a couple) under each rail, and tighten it down from the top, might make things easier? Could also have sets for commonly used angles in your builds.

But cool , this looks awesome. I've been meaning to make something like this.

Thanks for sharing!

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What about getting or making a set of spacers in common sizes? I assume you're dialing in the final thickness using the router anyway, so having something that's known to be an inch, or a half inch, or 40mm, just throw one of those (or a couple) under each rail, and tighten it down from the top, might make things easier? Could also have sets for commonly used angles in your builds.

But cool , this looks awesome. I've been meaning to make something like this.

Thanks for sharing!

Great idea! ofcourse there will be the challange of making the spacers exactly the same height... but you could also fill the bolt with a couple of nuts (from the botom up) and use washers for the fine-tuning....

thanks for the tip

Grz Arjan

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Don't know your situation, but here in the states, I've often found nylon spacers in the parts bins at hardware stores. If you can get one that will fit around the bolts you've used, it should work well. They come in a few standard lengths, which is handy, and the ones I've used seem pretty accurate. If you need different sizes, you can stack a few, or they'd be fairly easy to cut with a razor saw and a mitre box.

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I'm currently building a router planing table which uses two thick rails down the length and two across the width. Rather than angling the rails, i'm building in a height adjustable "shim" on the table which raises the workpiece to the required angle instead. I decided on this approach as i'm using CNC machine rails and pillow blocks which are a little more awkward to create angles with accurately and economically. I decided it was best to keep the rail geometry sharp and aligned, and manipulate the workpiece instead.

Your L-sections are a great idea as they have stability built in for their comparative weight, plus they don't cost much. You might consider investing in some toggle clamps to secure your workpiece, or perhaps use scrap aluminium and cork pads as per David Myka's angle routing jig. That said, whenever adding hardware into the tooling path, be very careful that there is no chance of the cutter hitting anything other than air or your workpiece!

Are we going to be seeing a build thread on this instrument soon? Looks good.

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I'm currently building a router planing table which uses two thick rails down the length and two across the width. Rather than angling the rails, i'm building in a height adjustable "shim" on the table which raises the workpiece to the required angle instead. I decided on this approach as i'm using CNC machine rails and pillow blocks which are a little more awkward to create angles with accurately and economically. I decided it was best to keep the rail geometry sharp and aligned, and manipulate the workpiece instead.

Your L-sections are a great idea as they have stability built in for their comparative weight, plus they don't cost much. You might consider investing in some toggle clamps to secure your workpiece, or perhaps use scrap aluminium and cork pads as per David Myka's angle routing jig. That said, whenever adding hardware into the tooling path, be very careful that there is no chance of the cutter hitting anything other than air or your workpiece!

Are we going to be seeing a build thread on this instrument soon? Looks good.

I hope you'll be posting pics of your jig too... I’m curious how it turns out...

I've used the jig for three 'jobs' now, namely 1) to plane the topwood even... 2) to plane the neck-angle into the body .. and 3) to roughly form the carving....

With job 1 & 2 I just used an anti-slip mat (is that English?) to stop the body from sliding. When I was planing the neck-angle into the body I really didn't want it to move, so I use double sided tape...

On my website I'm posting my progress on this guitar. But I think I will start a build thread on Project Guitar, I've been active on this forum for some time now and there is a real positive buzz... It would be nice to get some feedback on my progress here... But this is my first build and to compensate for the lack of experience I'm taking things slow and try to think things trough before I actually do something... so it might become a long running thread :D

Grz Arjan

Edited by ArieBombarie
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Anti-slip mat, yes. Double-sided tape (pressure-sensitive 3M tape is awesome) is good, but I wouldn't trust it as much as I would a set of clamps. If you're only taking off 1-2mm per pass with a large round-nosed router bit, DST should be more than enough.

Oh yes, i'll definitely post pictures of my routing jig when it's complete. I just need to find somewhere to buy good sturdy rail stock from who isn't as expensive as the CNC house I bought the rest from :-D

Anyone in the UK got any recommendations for stockists of straight 25mm and 12mm rail?

Edited by Prostheta
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I keep plaing with the idea of using linear rods and bearings for my own setup, but I've got a few ideas that I want to integrate that would make them akward to implement (things like adding guides for longitudinal and lateral arching, stole that idea from Kevin Ryan...). Maybe I'll just make two, though!

As for clamping, right now the plan is to build the thing significantly taller than it needs to be and use the rotating/tilting vacuum clamp I got from vac-u-clamp.com (I think they're sold out now, great quality at a fair price). Used it to hold my first guitar routed with my new binding routing jig (arched top and back, deep carve, and routing binding was so simple I could've done it blindfold, and clamping took all of 5 seconds to set up).

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I've designed a few ideas for attachments to the basic XY router thicknessing/templating idea to do binding channels and radiusing also Mattia. Kind of like a "dynamic duplicarver" by using one small template of the radius to guide the floating routers height. Simple in concept, so it'll probably work spectacularly well, or just not work at all :-\

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I'd considered that, but decided the swing arm+lazy susan+drawer glides solution would be more compact (important consideration; it can handle both solidbodies and big, thick acoustics) and easier to use. The two are also equipped with different tools; laminate trimmer for the binding jig (small, light, enough power) and a larger router like the 690 for the thicknessing jig where I want the power.

And then, some days, I think I'm trying too hard to mechanize things that don't take massive amounts of time anyway. It would be nice to have an 'all in one' convertible solution, but compact single-duty jigs (binding, compound radius routing, thicknessing/neck jig combo) don't take up much more space.

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True. I've been hankering for a thickness sander for a while now. It would be perfect for body blanks, making binding, fretboards and thicknessing bookmatched tops. So useful.

See, I already have one of those. And a bandsaw, and an oscillating spindle sander, vacuum clamping, and soon a router table (waiting for some bolts to mount the router). So I tend to just resaw to rough thickness (assuming 2-piece bodies), glue, then thickness sand. Easily some of the best money spent, that.

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