DIY Benchtop Router Table From a Wooden Cable Spool

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by MOTHER EARTH NEWS staff
Building a DIY benchtop router table from a wooden spool.

The DIY benchtop router table is built from a wooden cable spool and includes detailed instructions and photos for cutting and making the router table top.

I used to know a guy who never bought a nail. He’d pull them out of pallets or old junk wood. He’d salvage the wood and he’d straighten out each nail, securing it in a pair of rusty pliers and beating on it with his hammer until it was just about usable again. Nick wouldn’t pay for anything if he could find something that would work just as well. He would’ve appreciated my router table.

I don’t hang on to too much junk, but I just couldn’t see getting rid of that big wooden spool that had held the electrical cable I used to wire my shop. The wood might have burned alright, and there were some hefty steel rods that might come in handy someday. Still, it seemed a shame to dismantle such a potentially useful structure. I left it outside the shop for a few weeks while I pondered.

Now it’s one of the most-used items in my shop. It serves primarily as a router table, but it’s also sized just right to support long boards as they come off the back of my table saw. By mounting a router upside down in the table, you dramatically extend its capabilities. Because you can bring the work to the spinning cutter–instead of the other way around–you eliminate the hassles of clamping the work down. Your router becomes more like a stationery shaper, allowing you to set up for repeatable tasks including template routing and joinery.

  • Updated on Jan 8, 2024
  • Originally Published on Jun 1, 1996
Tagged with: woodworking, workbench
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