Combination Router/Plasma Tables

[tnbndr]

A question for those of you using combination router/plasma tables, especially with water trays. How do you convert from plasma to router on the table bed? Drain all the water? Cover the slats with ?
Just seems it would be hard to get a good flat surface for the wood to be routed. Also chip cleanup or mixing with plasma gunk, hard to clean up?
Just looking ahead as I have been asked to help a local school that purchased a combination table.
Any and all ideas welcome, pictures!!!

[acourtjester]

I have a 4 x 4 table so I remove the water table and replace it with a wooden box with hold down holes. I also use a dust shoe that remove 95% of the dust/chips to a cyclone dust catcher and Shop Vac. All the stuff gets caught by the cyclone so the vac filter stays clean.
The brush type dust shoes don't do a good enough job mine hovers just above the wood surface and the cutter moves independently of the dust shoe. The hold down are threaded metal inserts I install from the bottom side so the top is flush with the working surface.
I use the same box for plate marking for small projects.

CNC plate marker (3).JPG

CNC plate marker (9).JPG

CNC plate marker (19).JPG

dust shoe.jpg

dust vac cyclone (7).jpg

[Diesel]

How do you convert from plasma to router on the table bed?

Excellent question, excellent answers!
My table is a one-off, but it's spec'd and setup for routing too.
Someday I'll have to try it out...along with the rotary axis which I've used only a few times.

Regards,

Matt

[Capstone]

I took a large sheet of 3/4in plywood and put a piece of thick plastic on the back. The plastic was a throw away piece I scavenged. It's the kind of plastic you'd find installed in a gas station bathroom. Anyways, that goes plastic-side down on to my water table and I use large bessy adjustable slide clamps to hold that to the table, then I use 3/4in MDF for the actual fixture on top of the plywood.

[motoguy]

I took a large sheet of 3/4in plywood and put a piece of thick plastic on the back. The plastic was a throw away piece I scavenged. It's the kind of plastic you'd find installed in a gas station bathroom. Anyways, that goes plastic-side down on to my water table and I use large bessy adjustable slide clamps to hold that to the table, then I use 3/4in MDF for the actual fixture on top of the plywood.

How do you level the cutting surface on the jagged plasma slats?

[Capstone]

I took a large sheet of 3/4in plywood and put a piece of thick plastic on the back. The plastic was a throw away piece I scavenged. It's the kind of plastic you'd find installed in a gas station bathroom. Anyways, that goes plastic-side down on to my water table and I use large bessy adjustable slide clamps to hold that to the table, then I use 3/4in MDF for the actual fixture on top of the plywood.

How do you level the cutting surface on the jagged plasma slats?

So far, 90% of my router jobs have been strictly outline cut-outs of plastics so being off a bit (like 1/8in over 48 inches) is not a big deal. The layering of a piece of plywood and then the 3/4in MDF then "flattens" out the entire project pretty much to the point where it's not an issue.

[BTA Plasma]

The most common way our customers will do it is cover the waterbed with poly and use a subplate. The subplate will sit or be clamped to the slat holders that are welded to the bottom of the water bed. Then they screw or clamp the material on the subplate.