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Woodworkers love their routers, and it seems they love to learn new ways to use their routers. Yes, I will admit to being one of those woodworkers. I’ve used a variety of replacement router bases over the years (decades, ack!), for trimming laminate, for making circles, for flushing plugs. Some were store-bought, many were shop-made, so it very much surprised me when I found a router plate option that I hadn’t seen before buried in our Tips & Tricks articles from years back.
Simple – though there’s some math involved (double ack!) – and plain clever. It allows you to offset your router passes by simply rotating the router against the cut. Cool! It’s not a new concept, but putting four offsets in one base was pretty slick. And it’s a snap to make multiple plates to adjust the offset by 1/16″, or 1/4″ or whatever is required! Luckily I have enough routers in my cabinet to leave the most popular sizes plate on a router permanently.
We received lots of positive support on the trick, but a couple of folks had the legitimate question of what you’d do with this clever idea. I suggested a couple in the comments section, and one or two other folks did as well (thank you!). Knowing that woodworkers are, by nature, problem solvers, my guess is there are a number of other clever folks out there that could help us add a few more applications to the list. If you’re feeling router-nerdy, take a look at the video and let us know if you’ve got other application ideas. And if you’re just feeling tricky, take a look at our Tricks Playlist. Enjoy!
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