DIY Router Base Plate with Adjustable Fence, Circles Cutting Jig, and Planer Capabilities

Hey, crew, how’s everyone? Welcome to another installment here at the Cuban Redneck DIY channel. In this episode, we will be making a DIY router plate jig with an adjustable fence for cutting circles, dados, mortises, and more. I’ve been meaning to build a router plate jig like this for a while. I just have not run into the suitable material. I envision making it out of ½ material, and initially, I thought of acrylic or Plexiglas, but I find it not very machinable. Besides, the cost exceeds that of the router I intend to use in this project. I am talking about my RYOBI ONE+ P601, which you can buy at Home Depot for $49.99. With that said, know that this router plate jig with an adjustable fence can accommodate whatever router you have, including Bosch, DeWalt, Milwaukee, Makita, and even the units from Harbor Freight.

Do you need a router plate jig with an adjustable fence for cutting circles, dados, and mortises? I do! I am looking to step up the level and quality of projects I engage with not only for the channel but also personally. A versatile router plate goes a long way towards achieving that!

The design of this router base plate is pretty straightforward, and I will rely on my experiences in mechanical engineering rather than my woodworking skill for the execution. The concept is to allow a rod to slide back and forth through a set of guides and fix it in place with a set screw. The material I have chosen is a high-density polypropylene in the shape of a cutting board measuring 15 X 20 X .5 Inches. I am familiar with high-density polypropylene, and one frequently used for tooling and jig in many of the race shops I have worked. In the past, we usually buy the King StarBoard brand, but for this project, we are trying to save some money, so a cutting board made out of high-density polypropylene will do. It may not have all the properties of StarBoard, but it will more than suffice for our application.

After some consideration, I decided to cut the cutting board on the short side. My first cut was at 8-inches, with a second cut at 7-inch to remove the rounded edges’ outer side. One more cut at 2-inches from the end on the short side. That will become our outrigger. The 1-inch strip will eventually become six small pieces for the guides measuring 1.75 X 1-inch. I made a simple jig to drill the guides. They need to get drilled with a ¼ inch bit in the center. I had to go back and wiggle the bore a little to get the rod to slide freely. Four out of the six guides need to get drilled on the top for the thumbscrews I am using as set screws. And of course, you also need to drill the bottom for 10-24X.75 flat head screws that hold them in place.  I suggest you drill and countersink all the holes on the mainboard and the outrigger, then drill and tap one of the guides’ bottom holes. Mount them in place and drill down with the rod keeping everything straight. That will ensure more precision. Unlike in the DIY router table project where I drilled the center hole of the router base just big enough for the biggest bit I have, on this one, I open it up to the size of the router’s cavity. For my RYOBI a little over 2.5 inches.

The router circle cutting jig – For the circle cutting jig, I will use the same pin I made for the router table project. It is nothing more than what is a call a binding screw post. You can get them at Lowe’s, Amazon, and other places. These have an 8-32 threaded end. I drilled and countersunk the outrigger on the centerline, both near the router and the opposite end. That gives me a circle cutting range from about 4-inches to over 3-feet.

The router fence – For the router fence, I used two 3/16 X 2-inch bolts on to which I stacked two spare ½ inch router bit bearing I had laying around. I assemble two of these. You don’t have to use bearing anything cylindrical will do. At both Home Depot and Lowe’s, they have these ¼ inch cylindrical spacers made out of white plastic, and that was my original idea. Then I realized I had all these spare bearings, and I decided to use them. The use of bearings is 100% optional. Using the same jig I use for drilling the side rails, I drilled two holes 1-inch from the side and ½ from the edge, where I mounted the two bolts with the bearings that will serve as my router fence.

The router planer jig – One of the things I skip entirely in this video filming was the extra pieces of high-density polypropylene I ended up cutting for using this router base plate as a planer jig. The two pieces, which measure 1 X 7 inches, get installed on both ends of the router plate – on the outrigger side, using the same hole of the fence guides. On the main router plate at the back edge, mirroring the outrigger side. Although limited in application due to the narrow span, this feature is handy for shaving dowel flat with the surface of the workpiece, leveling inlays, and even small resing pour.

As always, I hope this DIY router plate jig with an adjustable fence for cutting circles, dados, mortises, and router planer feature serves as an inspiration on tools you can make with off-the-shelf materials in many cases way outside the spectrum of woodworking. My name is JC, and this is the Cuban Redneck DIY Channel. I look forward to having you as a subscriber, and I’ll see you in the next video.