Web Projects: IKEA BEKVÄM DIY Router Table

Oct 5, 2015

Published on September 18th, 2015 | by IH guest

After making guitars for years (using only handtools) I finally felt the need to acquire a stationary router table. Unfortunately quality tables are very large, heavy and expensive. Budget tables are just dangerous, damage the work and their quality is worse than bad.

Items used:
BEKVÄM Kitchen Trolley, BEKVÄM Spice racks, BESTÅ threaded inserts, BEHANDLA wood oil

What to do? The space in my shop is limited and my budget is low. After some consideration making my own table came to mind. But even then it would cost a lot of time and money. As always I started to search the IKEA catalog for ideas. The BEKVÄM kitchen trolley was just perfect. Made sturdy, compact and the right height. Second hand you can get them for half the original price.

For this table I used parts of two tables, one was made to have wheels, the other only legs. The top was removed and put on two hinges. A luthier friend gave me an old router and fence he didn’t use anymore. A round hole was cut in the centre of the top and the router base attached under it. To prevent the top from falling shut, a wall mounted arm was made between the lid and the side.

The slats from the middle shelf were taken out and re-used to make wall hangers for my wood chisels. Simply drill some 18mm holes in them and cut little slots to put the chisels or screwdrivers in.

To fit the fence to the top I took some threaded inserts from two BESTÅ cases. Simply screw them out with a large imbus wrench. The internal thread is M8. One of these inserts was ground flat at one side and used for the depth stop (to set the height of the router bit, simply turn the imbus at the top of the table). The fence was furnished with the ground plates of two BEKVÄM spice racks.

To keep use safe an electric safety unit was attached on the right. The key prevents unauthorized hands from using the router. The whole table was finished with two coats of BEHANDLA wood oil.