Because the bottom side is now flat I didn't need any shims to level it, just blocks to hold it securely as the slabs not heavy enough on its own to stay in place.Īnother few passes over this side with the router and the slab is level ready to use and the grain has really come out from the dark, dirty lump I started with. The slab could now be flipped and the process repeated on the other side. At this stage I'm not too worried about going any finer as I'll finish the slab later. Once I had gone over the whole slab once there were still low areas where the router couldn't reach so I increased the depth of the cut and repeated the process to get down to these low areas and further level the slab.Īfter everything is levelled and looks flat there were tool markings from the router, which using my orbital sander I sanded out using 80 grit discs. ( in some places the router may not be set deep enough to cut as the slab is uneven by nature but these areas will be addressed on the next pass). With the routers depth set to remove no more than 5mm at a time, (so its easier and safer no chance of sticking or tearing) I used a back and forth motion across the surface of the slab to cut away material, moving along the slab slightly left to right after every pass.
Once it was secure I placed my sled over the slab spanning from rail to rail and placed the router on top. If it does rock there's a chance that the router will cut too deep in some places and I'll have to remove a lot more material than I want to.
Now to level the slab I placed it in my sled setup on the bench top, using small pieces of scrap timber and shims to try get it as level as possible and prevent it from rocking and moving when cutting with the router. If you want to flatten large pieces of wood however then it is a very good solution for those of us that don't have industrial size planers and sanders. It works for me but is by no means perfect and I've seen much better examples on here that other people have made. I then have an old steel CD rack frame as the sled that my router sits on with two guide rails either side to stop it coming off. I won't go in to too much detail about my sled but its basically two lengths of 2" x 3" running parallel to one another, screwed to my bench, with enough room between for the slab. The easiest way to do this was to use my router with a flat cutting bit in, running it over the surface of the slab using my homemade router sled. My first job on this table was to level and flatten my newly acquired piece of Cherry.
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