Precision Router Table by Lee Dibble
Below is an email and pictures we received from Lee after he purchased a custom TAP bag from Roarockit. The Router table looks amazing.
Hi Norah, my name is Lee Dibble.
I contacted you months ago to buy a vacuum bag to press my Router table top together and inquired about your product. Well, the table top came out so good and flat that it took some of my old machinist measuring tools to find out just how much it was out of flatness. Within .005 out of flat for the top surface. Let me explain. I used 2 pieces of 3/4 MDF for the substrate under my top surface which was electrical grade Phenolic. I did alot of prep work to the MDF like sand all edges to make sure they sat flat upon each other and then put the Phenolic on top of those pieces of MDF. The Phenolic I used was a stock piece about 4ft by 4ft by 1/4in thick. It needed to be cut down to the 3ft by 3ft, which would complete the rough blank my table would come from.
I glued the pieces together with Titebond wood glue and rolled it evenly with a hard rubber roller I got at an art store. Putting all of the pieces into the bag I followed the directions and laid out the mesh after cutting it to fit the large plate to be glued in two directions. I pumped out the air using the hand pump and watched the bag for a few hours to make sure the seals were working, which they did, with no adjustments for leaks. I crossed my fingers and left the bag overnight and let it sit for 12 hours. Opening up the bag was easy after squeezing the one way valve a little and letting in some air. The sealed end was not going to open without a small fight which confirmed why it didn't leak. My rough table blank weighed about 50lbs before cutting it to size so I used my kitchen table for gluing. When I removed the blank from the bag, I could see right away the table was going to be everything I would hope for.
I have included pictures of the gluing stage and the final assembled table top. I looked for many ways to glue the pieces together from driving my car onto the parts to bringing them to a machine shop and pressing them under great weight. I could not have asked for a better result than what I achieved using the Roarockit Vacuum Bag System for my project.
Sincerely, Lee Dibble
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Here are a few more pictures of the table:
