Piece / projectA wooden home for a HEPA filter
A custom flow-hood build that brings a large filter and a purpose-built plywood enclosure together.
Shop & tools • Shop tool
CNC-made router sled
CNC-cut panels became a tool for the woodshop. Sometimes making things starts with making the tool.
Documented October 2020Build story
The need
The workshop needed a router sled without waiting for the referenced kit.
The response
Adapt the Lee Valley reference and fabricate the panels on the CNC.
The result
A constructed shop tool made with another shop tool.
PART OF A LARGER COLLECTIONPrinters & machine work →
Professional notes
Contribution
Reference adaptation, panel fabrication and assembly.
Result
A constructed shop aid, with CNC fabrication feeding back into woodworking.
The need
The workshop needed a router sled. Rather than wait for the referenced kit, I used the CNC to make the panels and put the assembly together.
The need was immediate and practical: bring a guided router setup into the existing shop. The reference supplied a useful starting point, while the panels and assembly became my fabrication task.
One tool makes another
The CNC became a way to make woodworking equipment, not just decorative objects. The resulting aid brought digital fabrication back into the physical workflow that had motivated learning it.
This reverses the usual picture of a CNC as a machine that only makes final products. Here it helped create another means of working on future products. The support geometry and assembled tool are the outcome, rather than another decorative carve.
Build from a useful reference
The original post credits the Lee Valley router-sled hardware concept. I adapted that starting point and fabricated the panels for the workshop assembly shown here.
The distinction between adaptation and invention is kept clear. I did not originate the whole router-sled idea; I used an acknowledged reference and the tools available in my shop to make a working assembly for my own workflow.
Credits & project notes
Reference concept: Lee Valley router-sled hardware kit. Adaptation and CNC-cut panels: Michael Pytlowany.
The record documents the constructed shop aid. Process benefits are qualitative; no measured productivity increase is claimed. The reference-product image from the original post is not reproduced.
Sources
Router-sled project account
24 October 2020
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