I've gotten some emails about these templates, asking how hard they are to make, and how many you need. They're pretty easy to make, and we have about a dozen for our most common sizes and locations. An 8x8 housing that's flush up against the reference face requres a different template than one that's 'centered' on a 10" timber - the fence is offset by 1" to place the housing 1" from the reference face. The point is that you will often find yourself in a situation where you don't have the template you need, and for whatever reason, don't want to take the time to make one. That's when you wish you had a
universal housing template.
It has the advantage of the router riding directly on the timber, as I described in my last post. The disadvantage is that it's a little heavier, and takes a little longer to set up than the one-size templates. Also, the "walls" are not as tall, so it might be easier to slip over the edge (hasn't happened yet).
Here are two videos that show the thing in use. This time, we used a better camera, and made .avi files. I'm narrating the video (I kinda felt like Norm :-), and I mention that the steel plates are 16 guage. Actually, they're twice that thick, about 1/8".
Part 1 (57M)
Part 2 (31M)
I apologize for the large file sizes. It might take a few minutes to download. CB.
