Zero-Clearance Router Table Fence
George VondriskaDescription
From drawer lock joints to rail and stile doors, it stinks when your projects end up with ugly chips and tear out caused by the router table. A zero-clearance fence is a simple solution to this common problem. Don’t let the chips fall where they may. Eliminate them! A WoodWorkers Guild of America (WWGOA) original video.
I've got a drawer lock bit here in the router table and the setup is all set except for one big step. Look at how badly that vertical cut chipped out. This is Baltic birch plywood. It's a material that is very prone to chipping, but I sure don't want that included in my project. And really, any wood can chip when you run its face across a router bit like this. So we need to get away from this and the way to do it is with what's called a zero clearance fence on your router table. It's very, very simple to do. Now that I've got this setup right, and you can do this step until you know everything about the drawer lock is correct. Once the setup is correct, what I'm gonna do is loosen this face of the fence, with the bit running, I'm gonna run the fence into the cutter, then stop the bit, tighten everything back up. Let me get that done first, then I'll talk more about it. With the zero clearance, what's gonna happen is that now as that bit swings around and exits the cut, a piece of my fence is right at that exit point. So it's not unlike when you back up a cut with a sacrificial board, so that as a router bit exits, especially on end grain, there's something there to support it. Same thing, as the router bit exits the face, my fence is there to support it. Now in some cases, with some router tables, you can readily replace the fence faces with material that you might have around. So on this one, I've got 3/4 inch melamine. All I had to do is cut it to size and drill the holes and it works out perfectly with this fence. If you've got a scenario like that, you can do the same thing on your table. Keep in mind that when you make your fence faces, you have all sorts of corners you can cut into. So I can cut into this corner. I can cut into this one. I can cut into this one. I can cut into this. I can keep flipping those fence pieces around. Also, as I cut into them and it gets to a point where I've cut a lot, I can go to the miter saw with the fence face, shorten it up, make another zero clearance out of it. So when I first make these faces, I make them long enough that I know I can get a lot of use out of them. Now that you know about that, let me do another cut and show you just how much our cut quality improves when we add that zero clearance. Now I've got a simple question for you, which piece would you rather have included in your project? This one or this one? Look at what a substantial difference that zero clearance fence made. And if it does this in Baltic birch, a wood that's so prone to chipping, imagine the quality improvement you'll see in woods that are less prone to chipping. So the zero clearance is definitely worth doing on your router table. Yes, it's a little bit destructive to your fences, but it's worth the quality gain that you get when you're making this kind of cut.
Hello, is anything either safety or cut wuality gained if sliding both sides of sacrificial fence into bit?
Thank you, I had this kind of problem several times and didn't know how to solve it!
Pretty impressive demonstration there, George. Thanks for all you do!
Thanks! I try to get the most out of the fence.
Awesome!
It's a drawer lock bit.
George that is a great idea. I am in the start of building upper kitchen cupboards and was wondering for some of my needed end grain router cuts how I was going to stop the tear out. I've tried backing the piece into the router bit from the wrong side, but while OK I found it very uncomfortable because the possibility for the board to take a fast walk down the table. Will be installing the sacrifice MDF board this weekend. Question though why you did'nt do the same with the sacrifice on the high side of the bit as well?