I have needed a new 3 1/4 HP router for about 5 years. My old one is about 25 years old and for the last 4-5 years it was giving me shocks if tried to use it when not standing on a fatigue mat. Routers are one of the few things that have actually come DOWN in price, quite a bit, in the last 25 years. My old one was a Porter-Cable and I paid over $300 for it back then (when $300 was sizable amount of money). The new one was about $250! When looking at routers, I got to thinking my router table was in need of replacement too. I bought my old one at the same time I bought the router and at the time I remember thinking I would be happy if it lasted 5 years.
So a month or so ago I cashed in some gift cards my kids have been giving me for birthdays and Christmas the last couple years and got a new 3 1/4 HP router and a cast iron router table top! A top quality cast iron router table needs a proper cabinet to sit on rather than the stupid stamped-steel legs they sell for them (for WAY too much money). So I built this:
My original plan was to make 5 drawers for it to hold the various bits, wrenches, setup blocks etc. that a router requires. But when I went to the wood store to get the oak for the face frame, I found the 100# drawers glides that I was buying for about $15 per pair are now up to over $35 per pair! So I reworked my design and got by with 2 drawers. It is not optimal, but it will work. And it is just shop furniture.
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