Add Flare to Your Favorite Projects
After you buy a router, it seems like you need to buy hundreds of dollars worth of bits and accessories to get it to actually do anything useful.

Sure, you can spend all that money on jigs, bits and fixtures. Or you can take the smarter route and purchase Cutting-Edge Router Tips & Tricks. This book from veteran cabinetmaker Jim Stack shows you how to make your router do amazing operations using just a handful of bits and some simple shopmade jigs.

Stack spent more than 20 years in cabinetshops of all kinds, from the down-and-dirty to the ultra-high end. He's seen a lot of routers in his lifetime and worked with a lot of useful (and near-useless) jigs. This book is the good stuff, distilled into 128 pages of full-color instructions.

Simple and Solid Accessories
After a brief and practical discussion of the different body styles of routers, Stack jumps right in with plans for his router table. This router table compiles many of the best features he's seen without any of the useless gadgetry. Best of all, it costs only about $60 in materials to make and performs the same operations as tables costing $500 or more.

The top flips up like the hood of a car to allow you to easily change bits. The router motor moves up and down on a shopmade lift system. Stack, who is quite a clever engineer, has devised a router-lift mechanism that is simple to build, straightforward to operate and robust. Plus there's a nice fence and plenty of storage for bits and accessories. He declines to call it the 'ultimate' router table, but we think it comes really close.

Cutting-Edge Router Tips & Tricks shows you how to get more done and save money by making your own jigs, including some you'll never find for sale. Circles, arcs and ellipses are all easily routed using the jigs in this book. And you'll learn how to make your tool into a groove-cutting monster. With this jig, perfectly centered, clean and crisp grooves are simpler than they've ever been before.

Techniques You've Never Seen Before
Need to rout grooves or profiles on narrow stock' Don't despair. Stack shows you how to do it on your router table with just a couple tweaks. Learn the clever and easy way to rout out deep cavities for jewelry boxes. Rout mortises for cabinet locks with the assistance of one scrap of wood and a couple clamps--you can't miss with this method.

There are pages and pages of techniques that will surprise you--too many to list here. Turn any router table into the most accurate and easy device for flushing up edges we've ever seen. You can even do template work with this incredibly simple setup!

Worthwhile Projects
Cutting-Edge Router Tips & Tricks features three detailed projects that allow you to further explore the awesome capabilities of the router. The book's plans for a game table don't feature a single straight line--even the checkerboard is curved. The project is a master's thesis in template routing. Every cut is guided by simple templates that make for a seamless and curvaceous project.

The showcase cabinet, on the other hand, is a workout for your router table. Every edge is beveled or chamfered. And virtually all the joinery is cut using the router table. The result is a project that deserves a place in any fine furniture gallery--or a place of honor in your home.

Finally, there are the shell boxes. These clever little projects show what the router can do with a jig. And what a jig it is! You can rout dozens and dozens of scallop shells with this clever rotary jig and a single bit. If you need a bunch of unique Christmas gifts or something eye-catching for a craft show, this jig is the ticket.