Over-engineered zero clearance insert
I must warn you, this post gives you a good view into my skewed mind sometimes when it comes to the off the cuff way I approach the design aspects of projects. I bolted down the new table, and then offset it slightly from where I wanted the final position to be. I’m using a round ZCI, so that I can just turn it slightly, without replacing the whole insert. The idea was completely stolen from a nice fellow on Woodnet whose name I cannot currently remember. I loaded up a circle cutter, picked a fairly random size (bad move #1) and drilled it out a full 3/4″ so that I won’t hurt the table too much if I overdrill or forget to set the depth stop in the future.
This gave me a nice clean hole.
Of course, now I realized I’ve got to figure out a way to make a nice perfect circular insert. In retrospect, If I had made a round template to start, I could have cut both the ZCIs and the hole in the table quite simply. So I had to work backwards and make a template based on an existing hole…
So, I started with a quick hardboard template, so I don’t have to muscle the table around the shop. One hand router and a flush cut template bit later…
Then, to actually USE the template, I needed to add double collar size of the template system to the size of the template, which the rabbeting bit provided quite handily. (Original template double stick taped to template #2)
With this, I was able to cut out a couple of sample ZCIs quite easily. I wanted them to rotate with only finger pressure, so I did sand the edges down a bit on the first one.
The plain MDF edge of the table wasn’t very pretty though. I decided to use some scrap sapele to band the table. A few mitre cuts later, I clamped it in place. I think this may be the first time I’ve ever actually hit a nice tight mitre fit on the first try. I glued it in place and called it a night.
