I liked the idea of a top bar over the original design, although the original is more elegant looking. Function trumps form, yet again. I am not a fan of 2x products. Here in Texas 2x usually means pine, and pine warps…badly.
I make cabinets as a job and as a result I have lots of 3/4" ply cutoffs, so I made a laminated topbar out of 3/4" plywood. The main bar was made of 4 pieces. (2) 8 foot lengths and (2) 2 foot lengths. the joints were placed at opposite ends of the bar. It was glued with TB2 and screwed together. I also added flats for the motors to sit on and to add rigidity. The results are very solid with no deflection under load. Add to this that given normal conditions it should not bow over time and I am very happy.
For dust collection I used one of my Festool CT26 and the shroud that comes with the ridgid router. The dust collection is very good. The vac creates enough suction that I have to break the suction bond to lift the sled from the work surface.
I used Bar’s leg design and must say it worked very nicely. I plan to modify it to accept casters and to hold some ply sheets on the back.
For a moment there, I thought it was hinged, so that it could fold up, horizontally along the garage door in its opened state.
In hindsight, that is a good idea. My garage space is extremely limited, and having it fold up with the garage-door might enable me to avoid using wall-space that could be used for something else.
Yeah. I know…I have two CT26, the track saw and two sanders, one is the rotex (best sander ever). Festool is expensive but each one saves me time on the cabinet jobs I do. So they actually save me money.
With a powerful suction bond such that the router sled bonds to the cutting surface, have you had any issues with the sled moving freely across the cutting surface? Any sled-skip or slip or issues with accuracy at all?
