# sliding table router table?



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

I am contemplating the purchase of a sliding table type of router table, specifically Grizzley model # G0525. Does anyone have any experience with this particular table or sliding type tables in general, including perhaps one you have designed and built yourself?


----------



## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Ron, the G0525 is a dust collector; I am guessing you meant the G0528 router table. If this is what you really want Grizzly makes decent products. I am certain you have never seen an episode of the Router Workshop TV show. On the show Bob and Rick taught us to "Keep things simple." I feel your money would be better spent buying a different table or even building your own. That is just my opinion for what it is worth and there is no wrong way to go about it. The Oak Park table(my favorite) is no longer available and if I were going to buy a table it would be the one shown here with the phenolic plate: MLCS Router Table Top, Fence, and Cabinet Base
This table top and stand costs about $210 which would let you include a router combo kit and bits for the same money you are considering spending on the fancy table. Food for thought.


----------



## RJM (Apr 11, 2010)

I agree with Mark.

Also, although I'm interested in a sliding router table as well, I wouldn't buy (or build) one like the Grizzly G0528. It's not a true slider but more of a router table with a built in coping sled. From the picture, it looks like the sliding table surface is slightly higher than the cast iron stationary half of the table. This would be necessary to make the slider work well but I think it could make it more difficult to get accurate cuts by introducing a slight tipping to a workpiece. This would also make it necessary to remove the slider when cutting narrow and wide pieces on the same setup (I'm assuming it's easily removed). Also if the slider doesn't have zero play, the accuracy of some cuts could be off.


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Thank you both for your replys & input. Mark, you are correct about the typo error in Grizzley model # G0528. I have seen what seems to be the exact same table available from 3 different sources (incl. MCLS model # 1217) probably all manufactured by the same company? I have a basic Rockler table w/fence etc. & a Porter Cable combo setup that has served me well. However, I have a paying project underway that demands a certain set of criteria that I can't get with my setup without significant modification. That's what led me to go shopping...it's a time vs money situation. I have been working my way thru all the shop made table pics in the forum and haven't found anything with a sliding type solution. That's why I posted...looking for opinions and ideas that might help lead me to make the best decision.


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Perhaps it will help if I explain the project and the reasoning that have led me to this point. I am creating 250 sq. ft. of tongue & groove flooring. I am engineering it from Hawaii grown hardwoods that I am custom milling. The end product will be 3/4" thick X 4" wide X 4' long. I need to route a tongue on 1 side and 1 end and a groove on 1 side and 1 end of each piece. It must be done precisiely so all the pcs. fit together in all dimensions. And it must be done with effiecient repeatability. I considered purchasing a shaper but I really don't have room for another machine and the cost for a machine that is a significant improvement over my router setup is more than double the cost of this sliding table. Yes, I can probably design and build what I need but that takes me away from the production milling and vacumn bagging process that I am in the middle of. Also, I have a schedule to get this flooring installed for the customer. And that schedule has to include plenty of acclimation time for the wood in between each stage. It's a fun project that I am really enjoying, but I have to do it accurately and effeciently if I am going to make any money on the bid price. Thanks again for your input!


----------



## garycurtis (Sep 17, 2007)

Ron, when I was building a new home in the vicinity of several lumber mills in timber country, I was advised against using a router to make flooring from red oak planks. 

To prove his point, one mill superintendent showed me the machinery he used to make flooring commercially. Large, specialized shapers. 3-phase motors. Flooring needs profiles on both ends. And on both sides. But most importantly, you need to grooves cut on the underside to prevent bowing and cupping due to floor moisture. Look at a piece of prefinished flooring at Home Depot. The kind that is factory sprayed. Flooring doesn't just sit there. It has a job to do. 

First off, aside from all the various cutters, you would need a power feeder to run all those board feet through the machine. We had need for about 800 linear feet for my house, and that would have entailed processing 4000 linear feet of wood edges and faces. Cutters would break down if your arms didn't fall off first. It would not be fun. And I could have bought the raw cut timber for less than $1/ft. 

And do you have a cyclone dust collection system? Some jobs are best left to the big boys, and in this case, that means a shaper with good DC, and a Power Feed.


----------



## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Wow Ron, that is a big project you are working on. Here are my thoughts on the process: the sliding table is not long enough to be of much help. A second router table would be; once you have the bits set up as needed keep them in the tables and don't remove them until you complete your project.(Unless you need to replace a bit that dulls) Make a couple of set up blocks and label them incase you do have to change the bits. Looking at commercial flooring is a good idea; the engineers have spent many hours figuring out what works so why not take advantage of this? I have a box full of pieces of oak flooring that a friend gave me, left overs from a job he did. It has a center section cut out as opposed to grooves but it strikes me either would work. You might try making a partial cut with either the Whiteside fine finger joint bit in photo 1 or the MLCS box joint bit in photo 2? Good luck on this.


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Thank you Gary for your concern about my arms falling off, what a way to go, having fun in my shop! Your comments about industrial equipment for manufacturing flooring are valid. However, I am not in to manufacturing. This is a relatively small foray into an area that at this time does not justify that level of investment. I am confident in my abilities to produce an extremely high end custom engineered flooring using my existing shop & tools with an upgrade to my router capabilities. Mark, I came to the same conclusions of the sliding table not being long enough to serve my needs. Plus, the freight to get it to Hawaii almost doubled the price and was a deal breaker. Today I ordered an Incra LS Super System Combo # 3 with router table & base. That will give me the precision repeatability I need and I will add a coping sled and straight line jig as well as folding wing tables to give me the support for 48" engineered planks. I do not believe the bottom relief cuts are necessary for a floating type engineered flooring with double membrane moisture protection over a concrete base. I am happy to explain the flooring construction and reasoning to anyone interested. I still think the sliding table concept is interesting and probably has merit in the overall router table field, but I have decided it is not the solution for my current needs and decided to move on in another direction. Thank you all for your input and maybe this will spur someone to think about the possibilities that have not yet been explored in this area and come up with something new that coul serve us all.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

ronaloha said:


> Thank you Gary for your concern about my arms falling off, what a way to go, having fun in my shop! Your comments about industrial equipment for manufacturing flooring are valid. However, I am not in to manufacturing. This is a relatively small foray into an area that at this time does not justify that level of investment. I am confident in my abilities to produce an extremely high end custom engineered flooring using my existing shop & tools with an upgrade to my router capabilities. Mark, I came to the same conclusions of the sliding table not being long enough to serve my needs. Plus, the freight to get it to Hawaii almost doubled the price and was a deal breaker. Today I ordered an Incra LS Super System Combo # 3 with router table & base. That will give me the precision repeatability I need and I will add a coping sled and straight line jig as well as folding wing tables to give me the support for 48" engineered planks. I do not believe the bottom relief cuts are necessary for a floating type engineered flooring with double membrane moisture protection over a concrete base. I am happy to explain the flooring construction and reasoning to anyone interested. I still think the sliding table concept is interesting and probably has merit in the overall router table field, but I have decided it is not the solution for my current needs and decided to move on in another direction. Thank you all for your input and maybe this will spur someone to think about the possibilities that have not yet been explored in this area and come up with something new that coul serve us all.


I'm sure that it's the same as my table, they are sold worldwide under many different names. The reason I bought it to replace my perfectly good simple Triton? It looked very high tech. and was a second hand bargain! Not good criteria for buying a router table. Would I do it over again, not a chance. In my usual humble opinion,for top quality work a flat table with a tall fence, no bells and whistles is all that is required. As has been said, don't waste your money.


----------



## paduke (Mar 28, 2010)

IMHO the back grooves on flooring are relief for wood movement irregardless of moisture barrier under the flooor. Hardwood flooring is commonly 2 3/4" and back grooved if I was making a wider board I would not risk the cupping or humping especially on a contract


----------



## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Irregardless - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Aloha Harry & thank you for your post. You are the only person to respond so far that has actual experience with a sliding table and I find it very interesting that you seem to have found no unique benefits to the sliding aspect.


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Paduke: I admit to being torn on the issue of the relief cuts. I do understand their purpose and would not consider a solid wood type flooring without them. I have done a lot of research including collecting samples of solid, engineered and laminate. The relief cut seems to always be used in solid flooring, predominatly in engineered (but not as many or as deep) and sometimes in laminate. And I have seen them from deep and wide to small & shallow. The simplest being a 1/8" wide table saw kerf that is 1/32" deep. But what you said about "risk" & "contract" cuts too close to home for my comfort! I am rethinking the issue and will most likely design in a relief cut. It is a small additional procedure in the whole scheme of things that will help me to sleep better at night. Thank you for your input! Sometimes I allow myself to seek the easy way out thru rationalization and need a respected outside opinion to bring me back to the quality of work that I seek to achieve.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

Here it is again under another name. I wonder why it's for sale!

carbatec router table | Tools | Gumtree Forrestfield


----------



## garycurtis (Sep 17, 2007)

About the underside relief cuts in flooring. In the US, they measure hardwood flooring not in board feet, but in running feet. After being dissuaded from milling my own wood, I went to the flooring company in town. And looked at samples before selecting some factory pre-finished Red Oak that came in random lengths and 5" widths.

All the sample I saw, including engineered wood, had the relief cuts. They looked like shallow parallel Dados, usually about 1/2" wide (12.5mm) and cut in parallel. None were close to the edge. I'm sure if you were to look at a Flooring Industry website (do a Google search) they would explain the terminology and purpose of floor planks.


----------



## RJM (Apr 11, 2010)

From what I can tell there are 2 kinds of "relief" cuts on the backside of hardwood, and engineered flooring. One is parallel to the length of the board and the other is perpendicular.

The engineered flooring I've seen has very narrow cuts (1/16") perpendicular to the length of the board that are about as deep as they are wide. It's my understanding that this helps stabilize the board and reduces the chance of buckling do to expansion.

For the parallel cuts, there are many opinions but the main reasons I've found are:
1. Easier install when subloors are not perfectly level.
2. To identify which side goes up (or down).
3. Relief for glued down flooring.
4. Makes it easier to bend the boards (laterally) to close up gaps between boards.

I've also read that with modern materials and building techniques, these parallel grooves are probably not needed.


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

There is a lot of conflicting information on the subject, even on the official industry websites. My initial research on the subject, as well as my most recent review, has brought me to the same conclusion; that with modern materials and techniques it "probably" is not needed. My personal experience with engineered table tops using exactly the same techniques I am using for the flooring (1/2" mahogany marine ply sandwiched between a top and bottom layer of 1/8" hardwood vacumn bagged with waterproof glue) tells me dimensional movement is negligible. I have built tables with this technique in Hawaii and shipped them to climates as diverse as Minnesota and Florida and have had no problems. Also, since this floor will not be nailed or glued to a substrake but simply glued along the tongue and groove with a rigid urethane glue (no cold creep) it is basically a one piece floating type floor over a 1/4" moisture barrier membrane that evens out any subfloor irregularities and will have 1/2" space along all 4 sides for movement as a whole unit.


----------



## paduke (Mar 28, 2010)

Ron
IMHO I was wrong about the grooves


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Thank you, I appreciate your opinion. I used to take it personal when someone would question how or why i was doing something a particular way, but now I see it as an opportunity to verbalize my reasoning and make certain that I have really thought it through correctly. This is my 1st time at fabricating flooring and i am under no illusions that I know everything there is to know about it. I am simply gathering as much information as I can from as many sources as possible and trying to sort through it all and make good logical decisions to create a long lasting functional product.


----------



## Martin47 (Oct 29, 2011)

I just purchased a MLCS Precision Router table with a sliding table. I've only used once so far and like it but I'm still very new to woodworking.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

"but I'm still very new to woodworking."

That says it all Martin, "what you've never had you never miss"!


----------



## ronaloha (Oct 15, 2011)

Aloha Martin, Please keep us posted as to your experience and what you think of the sliding table. I admit to being a "tool junkie"! Actually, I like all kinds of fine machinery, tools, cameras, cars, boats, motorcyles. I like things that are well designed, well built and functionally precise. As stated earlier in this thread I ended up buying the Incra table and fence system, and I absolutely love how precisely functional it is, including the through the fence dust collection when connected to my Festool CT 33 vacumn. I know to a lot of people it is ridiculous to spend that kind of money and I have seen some amazingly ingenious shop built solutions. But, there is just no "one size fits all" in this world in my opinion. I could grow my own food etc., and I do wrench my 1996 Ducati because I can't afford a new one. Some people like chocolate and some prefer vanilla. The common bond on this forum is we are all woodworkers sharing ideas and information, and that is great, in my humble opinion.


----------



## CGeorge1 (Oct 14, 2004)

*Seriously considering the MLCS Sliding Roiuter Table*



Martin47 said:


> I just purchased a MLCS Precision Router table with a sliding table. I've only used once so far and like it but I'm still very new to woodworking.


Hi Martin, I am interested in your thoughts about your table, now that some time has passed and you've used it. I am having trouble finding unbiased reviews about this table. I am also a newbie to routing, but have experience with general hobby woodworking and DIY stuff. Looking forward to hearing your opinion. Thanks.


----------

