Hmmm. I spent a good portion of my youth shelling peas on a machine like this one...Originally Posted by king casey
It was easy, but you'd need a really big garage.
I have routed back covers for with a plunge router before I had a table. It worked just as well. It was just more trouble to set up. I made a template that was exactly the form of the back cover. Then I made a something to go around it that was the same thickness as the template+pickguard material. Since the router bearing/bit only touches the template, you just need to create a channel around the template that is a little wider than the bit. The idea is to have most of the base of the router supported at all times so that it does not wobble when cutting the pickguard.
I won't say it's easier to use a plunge or fixed base router for this kind of work than to use a table...but I have made less mistakes with with my plunge router than table. I think the reason may be that I am much more careful with the setup when I use the big plunge beast. I also think that the same thing that makes it unwieldy--it's size and weight--make it more stable as long as you take your time setting up the template.
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