Michael Kellough
Member
cliffp said:Michael, Thanks for that. Your suggestion of making a very tiny mark by just touching the bit against the workpiece to check before drilling sounds like a good idea. Whether I end up with a better guide plate or have to make do with the one I've got, I will if necessary use a feeler gauge to compensate for errors where the holes are too far from the reference edge. My experiments have shown me how essential it is to have completely square panels. My first attempt at drilling holes actually had an error of 1mm between the two rows of holes and I think half of that error was due to non-square panels. I learned my lesson after this and the experiments I described were done using square panels.
Mastercabman, On the subject of checking that the clamps have held the wood against the stops, I checked that carefully. The 1400 router is very heavy and it could easily cause things to move if the clamps are not done up tightly.
Reminds me of my first use of the LR32. The guide rail wasn't clamped tightly enough (I'm used to using the saw without clamping the rail) and the hole spacing went horribly wrong. Every little impact from moving the plate to the next stop pushed the rail a little farther on, mainly because I was working from the wrong end of the rail (the end stop couldn't stop the rail from sliding in that direction).