Shopsmith Forums

I am hoping someone out there that has made a sliding table for the OPR can share their experience. I have seen Nicks video/plan and was wondering if there was any further advice or feedback on its construction and use. Pics would be appreciated! Thanks in advance and God bless - Alec

Hi,
As of yet I haven't gone for Nick's method. I didn't want to cut into my OPR table. As luck would have it, one day I saw a piece of laminate-covered particlewood in a trash pile. After I added 2 oak rails to the bottom of it, this has become my "sliding table." It fits right over the OPR table and slides smoothly. I've used it a couple of times to cut dados across boards, etc.

One neat thing about router bits is that they are basically "point cutters" rather than "line cutters" such as circular saw blades. So many times the cheapest simplest "fence" can be satisfactory.

Thanks Chris - Do you have a fence on your sliding table?

easterngray wrote:Thanks Chris - Do you have a fence on your sliding table?

Not yet -- but I did use some toggle-clamps on it for a job or two.

I'm hoping charlese chimes in, I think he has quite a few nice ways of using the OPR....

easterngray wrote:I am hoping someone out there that has made a sliding table for the OPR can share their experience. I have seen Nicks video/plan and was wondering if there was any further advice or feedback on its construction and use. Pics would be appreciated! Thanks in advance and God bless - Alec

O.K. Eastern... I'll be happy to show you photos of my sliding table if you promise not to giggle at my mistakes.

The making of the fence and sliding table was really pretty straight forward. You need to drill the through holes on the front (user side) of both tables and then rout some grooves as shown.

I had problems because I went from memory, which is always suspect, and drilled 4 holes, one on each end of the grooves. DON'T DO THAT!!!!!

Because the center of the original OPR table is a medium of relatively soft fiber, I thought it best to line the grooves with oak. Then when the carriage bolts get tightened they are a lot less likely to chip away at the bottom of the grooves. This required me to fill the slots and make a second set of grooves, this time in oak. This second time the router bit walked a little on me and there are a couple of spots of irregular grooves. Ugly, but still functional because of the solid oak. I managed to plug the bottom of the back (extra/unwanted) holes with the oak inserts. The fourth photo shows the top of the sliding table with the oak inserts, prior to re-routing the slots. This operation caused the rear holes to be plugged so carriage bolts don't pull through. (also shown in the 1st photo dealing with the factory table)

You may notice the guide rails on the sides of my sliding table are not attached as shown on Nick's plan. (second photo) This method also works, but certainly not any better than the plan. My siding table was made from melamine faced fiber board. I'm happy with the melamine.

Sorry, I can't find a photo of the entire fence, but the pix showing half of it shows it is following Nick's plan. I made it from a 3/4" poplar board. This fence can be used either flat or vertically on the table. The last photo shows a set-up for routing tenons.

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Hi Chuck - That is very helpful! Thanks alot for your pictures. I hope to get one built this month - will post pics when I do - thanks again! Alec

Hi,

I thought a lot about a challenge lately, and finally put a jig together. I wanted something to help with box joints and dovetail joints on my OPR.

This jig is especially for the OPR in Horizontal mode. It slides left to right. There is a hinged support-board which can be clamped at any desired angle, as long as an angle-reference block is fabricated. I have made 90-degree, 90-14 = 76 degree, and 90-9 = 81 degree blocks. The 90-degree will be for general cuts and box joints. The other two are meant to complement some dovetail bits I have; I'm looking forward to trying some "through" dovetail joints with this setup.

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To date I just tried making box joints. I used the Adjustable Stop Collar under the table to index each cut accurately by 1/2". It didn't come out too bad!
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I don't know much about woodworking but those look darn good...and you said you were experimenting?

nuhobby wrote:Hi,
I thought a lot about a challenge lately, and finally put a jig together. I wanted something to help with box joints and dovetail joints on my OPR.

This jig is especially for the OPR in Horizontal mode. It slides left to right.

WOW! Amazing innovation! With box joints, you could gang cut all four corners at one time, eliminating a lot of table depth settings.

What??? Thinking of doing dovetail this way? Holy Cow! Bet no one has ever thought of this!!!!:D

Thanks Chris, for the ideas and your most interesting post!!!!!

Seems the only limit would be the distance of vertical movement of the table.