Home Built Router Power Feed

I had to round over two corners on 600 lineal feet of 1/2 inch thick by 1 1/4 inch wide MDF strips, I found that when I had hold downs set up for both the side and the top there wasn't much room for a push stick. The fact that I knew this job would be coming up again and my hands don't like a lot of repitive stress anymore prompted me to find another solution.

Years ago I picked up a junk motor with a reduction gear from a printing shop, I took a look at it and guessed that It might just do the job. I pushed a rubber center from a drum sanding kit on to the shaft and tested the speed it would drive a strip of wood across the top my workbench, it seemed about right.

	I found that a 3/8" hose fitting was just the right size to fit onto the shaft and the other end was ideal for the rubber roller. I added a nut to give the fiting a little more meat to drill and tap a hole for a 10-32 allen set screw to lock it onto the shaft.

	I mounted the motor to a piece of MDF and fastened a 2X3 across the top, this served to hold a length of 1 1/2" ABS pipe with an altered elbow that connects to the vacuum. There was a shaft coming out of the top of the motor so I drilled a blind 3/4" hole in the 2X3 to act as a guard. The power cord plugs into the same switch as the router.

	It is fastened to the table saw fence with clamps presently, a better system may be fortcoming.

	This is the motor plate, it turns at 81 rpm and draws .38 amps. Not very big, the top shaft, from the armature that I covered up, could be stopped with finger pressure, but the reduced speed shaft has plenty of power to pull the strips through.

The strips have to be pushed by hand past the router bit into the feed roll. Over all it worked very well, it got the job done, best of all I just had to feed and catch the strips, no stress, no aching hands at the end of the day.