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Im working on a “control panel” made out of 3/16” acrylic with several small cutouts in it for gauges, displays etc. Overall the piece is about 20” by 7”. In the past I have cut the acrylic to size using my Bosch plunge router and guides, and either made templates or set up straight guides to do the cutouts and ensure perfectly square/straight lines. To do this more efficiently I thought I would try a router table, so I picked up the Bosch RA1181. Having never used the table before, I wanted to be clear on general safety. One of the things I’ve read is you should never have your work piece sandwiched between the fence and bit. I was planning on doing just that to “rip” the acrylic to size (ie set fence at 7” to cut the overall rectangle from a larger piece of acrylic), and again have a portion of the acrylic between the bit and fence as I wanted to use the fence as my straight edge to make the cutouts.

I guess what I’m wondering is, whether the router table is the right tool for this job.

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  • If all you were after were some sizing cuts you could have saved yourself a bundle and not bought a router table at all — just do your careful measurements, clamp on a straight edge, chuck up your bit, place the curved edge of the baseplate against the edge and route away. You could rough cut to size first in any way you chose (including with a hand saw) and then use this as a trimming pass, or just use the straight bit directly as a cutter, it doesn't make much difference for just a couple of cuts as long as your feed rate and speed are OK.
    – Graphus
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 23:15
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    Re. router tables in general, you're going to hate finding this out now as well but many pros have made do (for more years than you'd believe) with a piece/sandwich of ply or MDF or chipboard with a hole in it, clamped to the edge of a bench or worktable! And a straight piece of wood clamped on (arbitrarily!) can suffice for a fence for a lot of purposes. as and when needed.
    – Graphus
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 23:20
  • I've edited out the question at the end because that's a separate query entirely and deserving of its own Question, IF after some research you can't find the answer to it here or elsewhere. I suggest one good way to approach this research isn't to just cast about for this and that guide to doing various jobs but instead read a book entirely devoted to the subject. This will take you from routers 101 stagewise through all the main uses, and remove doubt about the convention for doing any given operation. Archive.org has at least a couple of books on routers, including the book by Spielman.
    – Graphus
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 23:28

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In the past I have cut the acrylic to size using my Bosch plunge router and guides, and either made templates or set up straight guides to do the cutouts and ensure perfectly square/straight lines. To do this more efficiently I thought I would try a router table...

You can use a template with the router table to do the straight lines. Your router table should have come with a guide pin you can screw into the baseplate. Use that instead of the fence, and make sure not to get your fingers too close to the spinning bit.

Having never used the table before, I wanted to be clear on general safety. One of the things I’ve read is you should never have your work piece sandwiched between the fence and bit. I was planning on doing just that to “rip” the acrylic to size (ie set fence at 7” to cut the overall rectangle from a larger piece of acrylic), and again have a portion of the acrylic between the bit and fence as I wanted to use the fence as my straight edge to make the cutouts.

It's correct that is not a good idea to make a through cut where the workpiece can be pinched between the fence and bit. However, you could firmly tape the face of the acrylic to a sacrificial piece of wood using double-sided tape. If you only cut slightly into the wood on your last pass on the router table, you are not making a through cut and your chance of kickback is reduced. For even greater safety, you could use a spacer to offset the acrylic from the edge of the wood. This way, the wood runs against the fence, while the acrylic is set away from the fence by a consistent space, and won't have an opportunity to be pinched between the bit and fence.

I guess what I’m wondering is, whether the router table is the right tool for this job.

I hate to say it, but for the straight cuts you don't even need a power tool. You can score the acrylic several times on each side using a straightedge and sharp utility knife, then snap the acrylic along the score line. In fact, depending where you buy your material, they may cut it to size for you using exactly this method.

None of this necessarily means the router table is the wrong tool for the job. It just means that there are many ways to achieve what you want, and for safety's sake, you will need to make some minor tweaks to how you thought you would use your router table.

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