i love my router tables but some tasks are best done with a handheld router and an edge guide normally i use a commercially made guide that has an interlocking plate but over the years i've also made and shown in some videos some homemade versions which i really like and today i wanted to revisit a couple of those and do a quick video to show these two to you because they're my favorites in that they're fairly simple to make but have some really clever features that i think you'll find interesting the first is made from two pieces of mdf the wider piece is about eight inches by 24 inches the width of the narrower piece depends on your router to find that width place a mark on the base of your router which you intend to run against the edge guide when it's finished i'll explain more about that shortly now you have to find the center of your router's spindle you can do this with a centering pin which is a handy accessory to have or you can just use a pointed router bit like this one as a last resort you may even use just a straight bit which might have some visible machine marks at its center any of these options should help you to accurately measure from the center of the router spindle to the edge of the plate that you marked previously this is the width of this narrow portion of your jig now you'll connect the two pieces with a piano style hinge there should be no gap between them as you lay out your screw positions each screw has to be centered in the hinges holes you don't want an off-center screw head throwing your jig out of alignment as you drive the screws home one way you might do this is to carefully center the point of an awl in each hole and create a dimple that can then become a guide to locate your drill bit when you bore a proper pilot hole another option is to use a self-centering drill bit this is definitely the easiest method i'll link to a good set of self-centering bits below they're really handy anytime you need to mount hardware on your projects when i do drive my screws i like to work from the two ends and then in toward the center that further ensures that the hinge will not be thrown off from the seam below it when it's all mounted to use this guide mark the center point of your dado or groove on your work piece not the edge the center then align the guide with that line and clamp it in place now flip up the hinged portion and make your cut because we're referencing from the center of the bit the width of the bit makes no difference this jig will work with any width bit you wish to use now while we did take care to locate the exact center of the router spindle your router's base plate may not be perfectly centered that's why i said to mark one side and then measure from the center of the spindle to that side when you made the jig now you're always going to put that marked side against the edge guide and that will eliminate any inconsistencies in the centering of your base plate that may throw off your cuts location of course if you remove your base plate later that's going to change things and we'll get to that shortly also note how i'm moving the router from left to right along the edge guide in this orientation the spinning of the bit will actually pull your router against the edge guide and make it really easy to control if you worked in the opposite direction you're going to have some difficulty holding the router against your guide so this left to right rule applies to any edge guide keep it in mind now that is the first guide let's look at another one i found this in a woodworking magazine years ago i don't remember which magazine but i do remember that the contributor who designed it was named sergey do close the arm of the guide is made from a three inch wide strip of plywood its length is up to you but i made mine four feet long so i could use it on a full sheet of plywood the cross piece is about 18 inches long and about two inches wide i made that part from hardwood for extra durability and i made the fence part from plywood so it would be nice and straight and stable make sure the connection between the two is very strong and that it's perfectly square now this guide requires a custom router plate which you can also make yourself from a piece of quarter inch plywood it's eight inches by seven and a half inches the hole that the router bit passes through is not perfectly centered you can see where it will be in this drawing it doesn't have to be perfectly located here this is just its rough off-center position i use one of those self-centering drill bits to transfer the screw holes from my stock plate accurately to my new homemade plate then i screw the new plate onto the base of the router and i install a bit and use that to plunge through and to create the hole in the right position now that offset hole is what makes this jig so clever each side is assigned to a different size router bit from a quarter inch up to three quarter inch as you can see here i wrote those sizes on the router plate itself so i can remember them to use it is the side of the plate that matches the bit you're using against your t-square fence now when you make your first cut just let the bit pass right over the guide's cross piece in fact you might do that with all four bit sizes right from the start creating grooves because of that offset router plate each of your four grooves will be in different locations two on one side of the cross piece and two on the other label them for future reference now when you use this jig you'll use these grooves in the cross piece to accurately position your cut for example if you want to cut a half inch dado you're going to align your half inch positioning groove with your cut line install a half inch bit in your router and then read the edge of the base plate that's labeled a half inch against the guide don't forget to always work from left to right this may mean placing the cross piece on the right hand side or the left hand side of your work piece depending on the alignment grooves that you're going to be using also note that taking off your homemade base plate may throw off its alignment the next time you reinstall and use it if your screw holes don't force it back into exactly the same position again you might have to pick up an inexpensive base plate centering comb like this one this will help you center the hole for the bit directly over your router's spindle again a cone like that can also eliminate the need to mark the base that we discussed earlier i think it's an essential little accessory especially if you swap router base plates from time to time i'll link to the one i use below this video finally keep in mind that modern plywood is not fully a half inch thick or three quarters inch thick and so on if you work with a lot of plywood it is really worth investing in a good set of quality undersized plywood router bits that are properly sized for this undersized plywood that we have i'll link to the ones that i use b
