How to Make a Base Plate for a Router

Video Transcript

"Hi, My names Kevin on behalf of Expert Village, I am going to show you how to make an over sized based face plate for your router. When you are using a router, a problem that can often happen, is because the base is not very big is when you are routing, it can be easy to lean over one way or another and either make the cut uneven, or even worse is to dip the bit into your work causing a lot of damage, and possibly ruining the piece. So one thing you can do to combat against that is that you can make an over sized base for the router. What you want to do is take a plywood board and you can make this really any size, but, you want to make it bigger than the router but not so big that its so cumbersome, and in your way, but that it will give you some extra registration. So what you want to do , is take this piece and drill about a three quarter inch, you can even drill a much bigger hole if you got bigger bits that you want to fit in there, you can customize it to the specific job. But for this, we just have a little straight bit in there, and so we don't need a massively big hole. But, if you drill this in there, you take this and attach this to the router base so that when you are routing, you have this extra registration so instead of having just this base here, you now have all this extra room to run off of. And so, it really makes it easier to control and a lot less likely to go off to the side or back this way. And the advantages there are that you are less likely to mess up your work piece and it just gives you better control. Especially with some of the bigger bits out there, they can create kind of a wobbly effect in the router so this is going to really help you keep it straight get a smoother cut with less tear out, and a smoother cut overall . So its a really good idea to make one of these, and you just get rid of it, make a new one if this one becomes damaged, or if you have one that is a specific size to a specific job, so these can just be made out of plywood, I don't recommend making them out of solid wood, or if you have composite material like a really hardened plastic, that would be a good thing to use as well."