Dan Shapiro

The Good: Adjust the height from above the table with out breaking the bank
The Bad: May need some adjustment to achieve precise height
Overall: A great value for your router
Rating: Four Thumbs Up (4/5)
A router table is a wonderful thing! A router table can also be an expensive thing. It seems that sticking a router under a hole in a table and using it from the top should be a simple bit of engineering, but until recently it eluded most router manufactures. Your two options were to spend a few hundred dollars on a router lift or to bolt your fixed base under the table and go spelunking every time you wanted to adjust the height.
The Bosch 1617 kit that I bought a couple of years ago was no exception, but every time I looked at the fixed base I just knew that it should be a simple modification to find a longer screw for the adjustment and then drill one hole. I just knew that was all it would take…
My wife will happily tell you that I come up with far more projects than I could possible ever get done, so once again I never took the time to follow through on the modification. Luckily someone from Bosch was hiding in the rafters and took my grand idea back to the factory. The result is the ponderously named “Undertable Router Base with Above-Table Wrench Access: Model RA1165” which I’ll just call the table base. It’s exactly what I wanted and had envisioned and you can pick one up for under $60. Bosch was kind enough to send me one to try out and it works just like the excellent fixed base that came with my router. Flip open the latch, turn the screw for fine adjustment, close the latch. You still have to reach under the table to find the latch, but all your adjustments can be made from the top with the included wrench.
Also, the combination of the open design and the included plastic window makes for great dust and chip collection. If you set up the table right, air is sucked down the hole in the router table and into the dust collector grabbing dust from above and below in the process.
I did have two minor issues with the base:
1) They should have included a template to locate the hole for the adjustment screw. Not a big deal but since there is no removable plate to use as a template you have to be a bit clever in figuring just where to drill the hole.
2) Occasionally the router would tilt just a hair when the latch was released and straighten back up when the latch was closed. This made precise adjustment of the height tough. I was able to fix the issue by tightening the nut on the latch to reduce the slop between the router motor and the base when the latch was opened, but now the latch clamps down on the motor tighter than I’d like. This could be fixed with a bit of grinding on the latch lever, and is somewhere on my list of projects.
Over all I’m very happy with the base. It does everything I need at a good price. If I were running a full time shop routing day in and day out I’d still by a nice router lift, but for something that gets used once a week it’s perfect.
Brian Todoroff
Contributing Editor, Nothing Severed Yet
www.nothingseveredyet.com

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