Adding a Soft Closing Feature to Your Router Table Top

Adding a Soft Closing Feature to Your Router Table Top

DIY Inexpensive Router Lift American Woodworkers shared some plans a while back on how to make your own router lift for your router table. The plans they shared were great and the router lift worked out perfect. But early on in our use of the new lift, we realized that there is a potential hazard of having the top of the router table tip and slam down on you while you’re changing the router bit, cleaning up sawdust, making adjustments, etc.

Router Lift Missing One Critical Element To solve this problem, another subscriber suggested an inexpensive way to prop up the router table top and also provide a soft closing feature for added safety. The solution involves purchasing a screen door shock absorber from Lowes or Home Depot for around $10. The benefit of using this setup is that this type of shock absorber has a sliding stopper on it. Once installed, you can open your table top and adjust the slider to hold the router table top open while you change your router bit, perform maintenance, etc. View us on Instagram. Do you have any tips or ticks you have used successfully? Let us know and we can share them with the Wood Shop Bits readers/customers. If we use anyone else’s ideas we will give credit to the person who submitted the idea.