[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Welcome back to "The Woodsmith Shop."

On today's episode, we're building two great projects for your workshop.

Whether you call them storage solutions or upgrades or shop-made tools, there's something here for you.

Now, one of them is this thing here called a saw till.

Now, what's a saw till?

Well, if you're interested in hand tools, it's a great way to store and organize your hand saws.

Logan's going to show us how to make it.

To get the episode started, though, we're going to turn things over to Chris.

He designed a clamp-on router table.

Now you can turn just about any surface into a router table in your shop.

Both of these projects will take you about a weekend to do, so it's a great way to upgrade your workshop.

Want to build along?

The plans are at our website, woodsmithshop.com.

It's time to build.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... ...Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by...

Here at Grizzly, woodworking isn't just our business, it's our passion.

We love what we do.

Thank you for the opportunity to support "Woodsmith Shop" TV.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The first part we're going to make for our clamp-on router table is the top.

And that's what I've got here.

There's a couple of things we need to do to that top.

Well, there's a lot of holes to drill.

There's some corners that need to be rounded over on the belt sander.

And right now what I want to deal with is there's two slots, one here, one here.

And those slots are going to be for bolts that allow the fence to move back and forward.

So I have a fence, I've got a plunge router.

And I'm going to put a 3/8 slot here and here.

So let's go ahead and get that done.

Well, I drilled all the different holes that I needed to to mount our different parts onto the top, but I couldn't quite get to the center.

And there are three holes to drill here for mounting the base, the router base onto the bottom of the table, and I need a large hole where the router bit is going to come through.

So I'm going to go ahead and freehand drill these screw holes with my fuller bit.

And then we're going to use a drill guide with a 1 1/2-inch bit for our clearance for the router bit.

With the top all finished, it's time to turn our attention to the braces that will help support the top.

So I've got four of them, and each one has a radius on one end, so I've got a wide blade on my band saw.

I'm going to take a couple of cuts to produce that radius, and then I'll clean it up over on the belt sander.

Well, now it's time to assemble our clamp-on router table.

We've got all the parts here -- the top, braces, lip, and a cleat.

So let's go ahead and start by screwing on the braces onto the top.

Now, I've already pre-drilled these so they're pretty much ready to go.

I'm going to add a little bit of glue.

And I went ahead and I put some layout lines on the bottom here to help me out.

Keep everything straight and true.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ With the braces in place, I'm now going to add my cleat.

I think I'll go ahead and put the lip on.

I think I'll get a little more clearance with my screw gun this way.

♪♪ ♪♪ All right, with that assembly done, it's time to move on to the router table fence.

The router table fence has two pieces to it, a top cap and then a base below it.

I've got both of them clamped together here on the drill press, and I'm going to go through both of them with a 1 1/2-inch bit.

That's going to leave a port for a vacuum cleaner hose on the top, and it's going to help me cut out a pocket for which we can draw sawdust through to clear out around the router bit.

All right, with the two halves of our fence glued up, I went ahead and drilled two 1/2-inch holes.

And those are going to accept carriage bolts that are going to clamp the fence down to the router top.

As you can see, I've got some pencil lines drawn on the fence to make it look a little nicer.

I'm going to band saw along those lines, and then I'm going to take it to the belt sander and clean things up.

And then we are going to be ready to assemble our router table.

Well, it's time to bring things together with our clamp-on router table.

As you can see, I have added a router base to hold my router, and now it's time to add our fence.

So I've made two blocks and added a carriage bolt to each.

And these blocks are going to slide back and forth in these grooves that we cut in the top, and the blocks will just keep the bolt from turning.

So it's a big oversized plywood washer.

It's simple and it works.

So with that in place, I'm going to go ahead and put my fence over the hole, add a washer.

And now I'm going to use one of these quick-release clamps.

These things are great because they're so fast and easy to position.

And you can get them out of the way of the fence.

And there we go -- a clamp-on router table.

Just put it on the edge of your bench, add a couple of F-clamps or C-clamps below.

You've got a fence.

You've got dust collection.

You got plenty of room.

It's a great accessory to your shop.

And, you know, it only takes about a half a day.

So what are you waiting for?

♪♪ ♪♪ Chris's router table is a great project if you're looking to add a router table to your shop and you don't have a lot of space.

That's what it's like in my home shop.

So when I first saw Chris's design, I knew that I was going to make a version of my own.

I also knew that I was going to change a few things.

So in the interest of sharing how easy it is to transform a project from how it was originally presented on the show or in a magazine to something that suits your own needs, I want to show off my own router table.

Now, the first thing that we'll talk about is the top.

I went with 3/4-inch plywood just like Chris did, but I capped it with a layer of hardboard.

This creates a really smooth, durable surface so that workpieces slide across really easily.

The next thing that I did is I increased the size of the opening for the bit.

Now, the reason for that is that I like using a slot cutter for a lot of joinery.

So I want to make sure that the opening in the router table can accommodate that slot cutter.

It's the largest bit that I have.

So you might want to keep that in mind as you're building your own.

From there, I wanted to add a fence that has a few more features, specifically a little bit finer adjustment.

So I came up with a version for a smaller router table that I built before and expanded it.

So just like the original, it has two adjustable handles that take care of the large adjustments to get the router table fence in place.

I can lock it down.

The next thing, though, is I can loosen this knob on the top, and then by turning the knob on the back, I can make small adjustments to the position of the fence to really dial in the accuracy of a cut.

You'll also notice that I color coded the knobs on here so that they're easy for me to remember on what gets used with what.

Now from there, we want to talk about a few other things.

Now, you'll notice on Chris's fence that the dust collection is on the top of the fence, which is a great place to put it.

You can easily size it to accommodate a shopvac hose.

With my adjustable fence here, I wanted a slightly different option.

So what I did is made a shop-made nozzle that I attached to the back of the router table on the underside, so that way there's a little opening right next to the bit so that any chips that are created and fall down through the bit opening get collected there.

For other kinds of routing options, the dust and chips can get pulled in to that nozzle through this hole in the top of the table and then goes right out.

It's a really easy way to collect chips, and then the hose stays out of my way.

The other thing that I like about it is that it's kind of an experiment, and if I don't like it, it's just kind of tacked in place.

I can pry it off and remake it and try something else.

Now, a few years ago, I did a shop-made router lift, and it's really handy for making bit changes and adjusting the height of the bit.

So I wanted to incorporate that into this table.

So you see that attached to the router table from below.

What I like about it is that I have a vintage speed wrench from auto mechanics.

And then with a socket, I can very quickly and easily adjust the position and the height of the bit.

One last thing.

Just for fun, I made a small handwheel that attaches to the bottom of the lift.

So now, as if I were operating some kind of a valve on an old ship or something like that, I can adjust the position of the bit as well.

The point of all this is to show you that it's really easy to take an existing plan, something that we show on the TV show here, and take it into your own shop and modify it.

Change up a few things, hot rod it to make it work for your own shop, and from there you know that every time you go to use it, it's something special just for you.

So the saw till starts out with a hardwood case, and this case gets painted.

So we're going to go ahead and choose something that paints easily and is inexpensive.

So here I have two sides that are poplar.

Now, this case is held together with a series of stopped dados.

And to cut these, I'm going to use a router with a dado cleanout bit.

This is simply a little straight bit that has a bearing on it.

And for that bearing to ride along, I'm going to use a pair of fences.

And these are just plywood.

So what I'm going to do is lay out the dado location, and then I'm going to use double-sided tape to stick down one fence.

And then I'm going to bring in the actual part that's going to sit in that dado.

And we're going to use that as a spacer to position that second fence.

Then once I remove that, I'm left with those fences in place perfectly spaced out.

And then all I have to do is route that dado.

Now, because these are stopped, I've laid out a stop line.

I'm not going to put a fence in there.

I'm just going to pay close attention to my bit and make sure I stop before I hit that.

And then at the end, once I remove these fences, I'll go in and square those up with a chisel.

So here at the table saw, I need to cut a couple of rabbets on these side pieces.

So I've loaded up a dado blade and I've set an auxiliary fence so it's right up on the edge of that dado blade.

So as I make a pass with each side, it's going to form a rabbet.

Now, these horizontal dividers that we cut the dados for also get dados here at the table saw.

And those are for vertical dividers.

And those are going to create three cubbies for a set of drawers.

So I'm going to start by cutting this rabbet.

Then I'll grab the miter gauge and start cutting those dados for those vertical dividers.

Now, rather than tackling the saw till assembly as one big piece, we're going to break it apart into a couple of subassemblies.

Now, with these horizontal dividers, we just cut those dados at the table saw.

And those get these little vertical dividers.

And you can see once I kind of put those where they go how that breaks up this space into three cubbies.

Now, you can leave these cubbies open.

We'll fill them with drawers in a little bit.

But this is a nice little subassembly that is easy to handle and easy to assemble.

So we'll go ahead and get these glued up.

I'm going to put glue, some clamps, and maybe a couple of brad nails just to hold everything together.

Now, the shape for the saw till sides doesn't really matter.

All I did when I designed this is give me something that has a nice profile, and it kind of mimics the skew back of a lot of saws.

So I just laid out a couple of lines where my dividers are going to be, and then with a set of helping hands, I used a flexible strip of wood to create a curve and just sketched it out.

So now all I'm going to do is cut along those lines, leaving a little bit of the waste just so I have something to sand down to.

Now that these have had a couple of hours to cure, we can go ahead and assemble the rest of the case of this saw till.

So here all I'm going to do is take these subassemblies, drop them into place on one of the sides.

Just like that.

And then I'm also going to add this lower apron.

And this guy just sits in that back rabbet back here.

And that adds a nice finished look to the lower edge.

I'm going to apply glue inside of these dados.

Kind of work it up on the corners and the edges of those dados and then get the parts in place.

Then I'll apply a couple clamps and shoot some pin nails.

Now with the case of the saw till drying, we can go ahead and tackle the drawers.

And I've taken measurements right off those openings so I know the drawers are going to fit.

The only thing I like about these drawers is they're simple joinery.

They are just doweled together.

So all I have to do here at the table saw is take the stock, what I'm going to use for the fronts, and then what I'm going to use for the sides and backs, rip them to width and cut them to length.

Now, drilling these dowel holes is pretty simple if you have a doweling jig.

This one here in particular has a couple of stops to help register the different sides of the parts, but because we have that groove, I can't use the outermost hole.

Instead, what I do when I register this side with the bottom groove on it up against this stop, instead of using that hole that is near that groove, I'm actually bumping over to the center hole just to keep it away from that groove.

I want to keep this as strong as I can.

And then it's a simple matter of just putting the bit in and then plunging it until that collar makes contact.

So there's one hole.

Then I'll lower this stop, put the other one up, and drill that second hole.

So with those two holes, that's half the joint.

Now I just have to drill the matching holes in the fronts and assemble everything.

All right.

There we go.

Now, the final thing to take care of is to make the back slats that make up the back of the saw till.

And we'll do that over at the table saw.

The back of the saw till is a series of shiplap panels.

So what we have to do here at the table saw is cut a rabbet on each edge on opposite faces so they overlap each other.

We also need to go ahead and rabbet the ends so they meet that cleat on the top with a nice clean look.

So what I'm going to do first is rabbet the top of each part.

Then I'm going to adjust my rip fence to cut the rabbet.

And I'm going to spend a moment just dialing in the setup here so I make sure that that rabbet is exactly half of the thickness of my stock.

That way, each piece after it will hold the previous piece down once we attach it with screws.

Now the shiplap is screwed onto the back of this case with screws, and I'm only putting two screws in each piece of shiplap on the same side.

That's so that the shiplap can expand and contract as the humidity changes.

Now, for this upper one, it's screwing into a thin cleat.

So I'm using this little block of wood just as a stop block for my pilot bit.

And then I'm coming in with countersink to countersink the heads.

And then down here where I'm screwing into that horizontal divider, I'm simply removing that block so I can drill deeper, and then I'm using a little bit longer screw down there.

Now, the other thing that I'm doing is using a little pair of shims just to space out the shiplap.

That's just to give it a little bit of breathing room so it can indeed expand and contract.

Now with the back on and those drawers finished, the last thing we have to do with the saw till is to kind of dress up the inside.

To do that, we're going to install a divider.

Now, this is just dropped in to a stopped dado, just like we did for the sides.

And you can position this wherever you want.

I've included the divider just to break up something like a back saw here from longer panel saws on the other side.

Now, we do need something to hold the handles of the saws.

And to do that, we're going to install a dowel.

So what I'm going to do is use this jig.

It's just a piece of plywood with a hole drilled in it.

And I'm going to clamp it in place, aligning the front edge to the front edge of this, and then use the hole in the template as a guide for the forstner bit.

So we'll just position that guy there.

And now we can go ahead and drill that hole.

The biggest thing is to make sure that I just don't punch through that far side, because this does need to be a stopped hole.

Okay.

Now we can test the fit.

And this whole thing kind of has to go together at once.

So I will lean that divider out, put the dowel in one of the holes, and then rock it into place.

There we go.

So that dowel works really well for back saws.

Now, depending on what back saws you have, you may need to position that dowel up or down, but you can kind of move that around and figure out where it works best for your saws.

Now, on the other side of the divider is where I designed for panel saws.

And to hold the panel saws, I use this little two-piece holder for the handles.

Now, this is simply a dowel that has a rabbet cut in it mounted on a thinner backer board that's going to hold it up at the right height.

Now, creating a dowel with a rabbet is a little tricky, but this starts as a square blank with a rabbet cut in it.

Then at the router table you can run a roundover on three edges, leaving the end square for support.

This leaves you with this shaped dowel with square ends, and then it can simply be cut to length and then it's ready to glue in place.

But again with this, you're going to want to play with the positioning because every saw handle is different.

Especially if you have a bunch of vintage saws, you'll find there's a variety of shapes and sizes, and you may need to move this forward or backward depending on what saws you have.

But once that's glued in place, you can simply take a block with a bunch of kerfs cut in it.

Here again, you might want to move that up or down depending on how your saws sit.

But when I attach this guy, I like to attach it with screws from the back side.

You might need an extra set of helping hands to hold it in place as you're driving the screws home, but once it's in place, it holds the saws really nicely.

But I think both of those can wait until we get a couple of coats of paint on this.

♪♪ ♪♪ Now, a saw till to hold hand saws and a router table that clamps on your bench may not seem like those two projects go together, but there is a theme that ties them together, and it's a great reason why we included them on today's episode.

And that's the reason of customization.

Workshops are really personal spaces.

It's really hard to try and be prescriptive about things that you really need in a workshop when I don't know your space, but you do.

So what you can do, as we've seen, is to customize a router table that can go practically anywhere, or even adjust the size or the layout of a saw till to hold the tools that you have.

They're all great reasons to spend a few hours, even a weekend in your workshop building one or more of these projects.

If you want to do that, the plans are at our website, woodsmithshop.com.

Don't forget to check out all the other ideas there.

You can find project ideas, inspiration, techniques to help you become a better woodworker.

And then we can gather right back here to build another great project in "The Woodsmith Shop."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... ...Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by...

Here at Grizzly, woodworking isn't just our business, it's our passion.

We love what we do.

Thank you for the opportunity to support "Woodsmith Shop" TV.