Independent Review of Jessem Rout-R Table by John Bullar

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Independent Review of the Jessem Rout-R Table (Router Table)

© John Bullar 2003

previously published in The Router magazine

What a beauty! JessEm’s red white and black router table certainly looks the part and judging from the spec – With a built-in router lift, a micro-adjustable fence, and a sliding mitre carriage option – it has some impressive functionality to boot. Unpacking the five hefty boxes it arrived in, I couldn’t wait to find out what this fine-looking Canadian table is really like to use. The kit I reviewed consisted of the Rout-R Table with its white solid phenolic resin top on a matt black aluminium stand and the black Rout-R Lift table insert. The main rear fence in a red anodised finish comes as standard while the sliding mitre fence on its polished steel runner is an optional extra, that came with the equipment for review. Rutlands Ltd. distributes the system in the UK.

At the time I conducted this test the JessEms manuals let the show down. The outfit came with a hotchpotch of loose leaflets ranging from a decent assembly guide for the fence to nothing at all for the sliding mitre carriage. I see that the JessEm website now publish manuals online.

Manufacturing the tabletop from solid phenolic resin, JessEm have given it weight as well as stiffness compared to metal or composite fibreboards. The tabletop comes pre-drilled and tapped in the right places for the fence rail fixings so everything fits first time. A large rectangular cut-out is provided in the top for the lift to drop directly in. Little grub screws then allow you to level the surfaces of lift surround and table. The legs and cross braces are weighty black aluminium extrusions you bolt together. With all the bolts tight and the screw-feet adjusted to the floor, you end up with quite a rhino-cage of a stand. You fit the router to an aluminium universal baseplate, which in turn clamps to the lift platform. Mounting or demounting the router takes quite a few minutes so if you intend to use the same machine for hand-held work you will need to plan. Having a total range of 63 mm (2 ½ inches) vertical travel, the lift makes easy work of adjusting the cutter height.

The lift moves freely and there isn’t any significant backlash in the lift adjustment. The gearing - about one and a quarter millimetres per turn – is a sensible compromise between fine adjustment and rapid movement.With the lift fully raised, the router baseplate is still 13mm (½ inch) below the table surface, which means lift and tabletop together steal 13mm of usable height from the bit. This could be a problem when using bits with short shanks. You wind the lift up and down with a plug-in crank handle, which drives a lead-screw via a toothed belt. The handle unplugs after adjustment to give a clear surface. There is a height scale engraved on the table beneath the handle. It is not possible to be very accurate with the adjustment scale because the position marker is on top of the thick handle well above the scale, which causes parallax error. I used a fairly big 1.8 kW router weighing six kilograms but it felt quite solidly supported. Pushing firmly on the static bit produced less than a millimetre of movement at all lift heights.

Thanks to the removable insert ring, it is quite easy to fit a wrench on the router collet and change cutters from above the table – much more civilised than crawling in the sawdust beneath. You can lock the ring in place or remove it from its bayonet fitting with the aid of the supplied plastic insert wrench. You adjust the fence fore and aft on a sliding rail fitted to each side of the tabletop. Each rail has a calibrated scale built in with neatly lockable adjustments. The extruded aluminium frame of the fence has two phenolic resin blocks bolted to it, one each side of the cutter bit. You can loosen the blocks with one of the Allen keys supplied then slide them along to minimise the gap around the cutter. Some thin plastic rectangular shims were provided. I checked the angle between fence and table with an engineering square - it was spot on ninety degrees. There is a fine looking scale on top of the aluminium rail but, as it is well away from the cutter and the wood, it is not a lot of use. I suspect it comes into its own if you buy the fence-stop accessory, which slides on top of the rail. Jessems list this as an ‘Additional Product’ their leaflet, but I notice one is included in Rutland’s photo.The optional mitre fence seems particularly well made, especially the steel slide mechanism.

Some components of the angle control are thick brass. The enticingly grabable aluminium handle also twists to release the angle setting. The mitre angle adjustment is indicated on a scale and clicks on detents at five-degree intervals. The machine I tested was accurate enough but there was a bit of play in the stops before tightening the handle, so you might need a protractor for precision work. As with the main fence, I checked the angle between mitre fence and table surface and this time it was a few degrees over ninety. I find this a little worrying because it would introduce inaccuracies in the parts you cut with it. I am quite prepared to believe there is some way of correcting this, but with no manual for the slide I was routing in the dark.The mitre fence fouls on the polycarbonate guard so you have to either remove the guard or introduce a spacer block between mitre fence and the wood you are cutting.I tested the table out using some coarse-grained oak and some fine grained sycamore.The fences aligned well and the wood glided over the smooth phenolic resin surfaces. I ran a 50 mm hose (2 inch) from my extract system and plugged it securely into the dust trap behind the fence.

Quite a bit of dust still passed through the insert ring around the bit so I decided it was worth fitting a vacuum hose on the routers own dust collector as well. With both hoses running the dust spread was minimal. Using the mitre fence to shape ends and cut tennons I found it slides positively along its rail with no slack at all making excellent chatter-free cuts. I can see this option being a ‘must have’ feature. While I have to admit this isn’t a cheap table, JessEms certainly haven’t cut any corners in specifying and manufacturing it. The Rout-R table system sings of quality from the moment you pick up the parcels and feel the weight of the materials used. As you unwrap those gorgeous red and black anodised components then feel the solidity of the system bolted together, you realize this machine will be a pleasure to use. The adjustments are sturdy, the scales clearly marked and the movements are smooth. The action on the optional mitre fence is as effortless as it looks – superb. I would expect this system to appeal to the serious amateur or a professional who wants a table for light work, perhaps because they use a spindle moulder for the heavier jobs. I suspect that hard use would soon take the gloss off the appearance of the table system but the only working part likely to degrade with wear is the lift mechanism and some adjustments are possible on this.
All in all this is a table worth saving up for.

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Independent Review of the Jessem Rout-R Table (Router Table) © John Bullar 2003 previously published in The Router magazine
What a beauty! JessEm’s red white and black router table certainly looks the part and judging from the spec – With a built-in router lift, a micro-adjustable fence, and a sliding mitre carriage option – it has some impressive functionality to boot. Unpacking the five hefty boxes it arrived in, I couldn’t wait to find out what this fine-looking Canadian table is really like to use. The kit I reviewed consisted of the Rout-R Table with its white solid phenolic resin top on a matt black aluminium stand and the black Rout-R Lift table insert. The main rear fence in a red anodised finish comes as standard while the sliding mitre fence on its polished steel runner is an optional extra, that came with the equipment for review. Rutlands Ltd. distributes the system in the UK. At the time I conducted this test the JessEms manuals let the show down. The outfit came with a hotchpotch of loose leaflets ranging from a decent assembly guide for the fence to nothing at all for the sliding mitre carriage. I see that the JessEm website now publish manuals online.
	Manufacturing the tabletop from solid phenolic resin, JessEm have given it weight as well as stiffness compared to metal or composite fibreboards. The tabletop comes pre-drilled and tapped in the right places for the fence rail fixings so everything fits first time. A large rectangular cut-out is provided in the top for the lift to drop directly in. Little grub screws then allow you to level the surfaces of lift surround and table. The legs and cross braces are weighty black aluminium extrusions you bolt together. With all the bolts tight and the screw-feet adjusted to the floor, you end up with quite a rhino-cage of a stand. You fit the router to an aluminium universal baseplate, which in turn clamps to the lift platform. Mounting or demounting the router takes quite a few minutes so if you intend to use the same machine for hand-held work you will need to plan. Having a total range of 63 mm (2 ½ inches) vertical travel, the lift makes easy work of adjusting the cutter height.
The lift moves freely and there isn’t any significant backlash in the lift adjustment. The gearing - about one and a quarter millimetres per turn – is a sensible compromise between fine adjustment and rapid movement.With the lift fully raised, the router baseplate is still 13mm (½ inch) below the table surface, which means lift and tabletop together steal 13mm of usable height from the bit. This could be a problem when using bits with short shanks. You wind the lift up and down with a plug-in crank handle, which drives a lead-screw via a toothed belt. The handle unplugs after adjustment to give a clear surface. There is a height scale engraved on the table beneath the handle. It is not possible to be very accurate with the adjustment scale because the position marker is on top of the thick handle well above the scale, which causes parallax error. I used a fairly big 1.8 kW router weighing six kilograms but it felt quite solidly supported. Pushing firmly on the static bit produced less than a millimetre of movement at all lift heights.
	Thanks to the removable insert ring, it is quite easy to fit a wrench on the router collet and change cutters from above the table – much more civilised than crawling in the sawdust beneath. You can lock the ring in place or remove it from its bayonet fitting with the aid of the supplied plastic insert wrench. You adjust the fence fore and aft on a sliding rail fitted to each side of the tabletop. Each rail has a calibrated scale built in with neatly lockable adjustments. The extruded aluminium frame of the fence has two phenolic resin blocks bolted to it, one each side of the cutter bit. You can loosen the blocks with one of the Allen keys supplied then slide them along to minimise the gap around the cutter. Some thin plastic rectangular shims were provided. I checked the angle between fence and table with an engineering square - it was spot on ninety degrees. There is a fine looking scale on top of the aluminium rail but, as it is well away from the cutter and the wood, it is not a lot of use. I suspect it comes into its own if you buy the fence-stop accessory, which slides on top of the rail. Jessems list this as an ‘Additional Product’ their leaflet, but I notice one is included in Rutland’s photo.The optional mitre fence seems particularly well made, especially the steel slide mechanism.
Some components of the angle control are thick brass. The enticingly grabable aluminium handle also twists to release the angle setting. The mitre angle adjustment is indicated on a scale and clicks on detents at five-degree intervals. The machine I tested was accurate enough but there was a bit of play in the stops before tightening the handle, so you might need a protractor for precision work. As with the main fence, I checked the angle between mitre fence and table surface and this time it was a few degrees over ninety. I find this a little worrying because it would introduce inaccuracies in the parts you cut with it. I am quite prepared to believe there is some way of correcting this, but with no manual for the slide I was routing in the dark.The mitre fence fouls on the polycarbonate guard so you have to either remove the guard or introduce a spacer block between mitre fence and the wood you are cutting.I tested the table out using some coarse-grained oak and some fine grained sycamore.The fences aligned well and the wood glided over the smooth phenolic resin surfaces. I ran a 50 mm hose (2 inch) from my extract system and plugged it securely into the dust trap behind the fence.
	Quite a bit of dust still passed through the insert ring around the bit so I decided it was worth fitting a vacuum hose on the routers own dust collector as well. With both hoses running the dust spread was minimal. Using the mitre fence to shape ends and cut tennons I found it slides positively along its rail with no slack at all making excellent chatter-free cuts. I can see this option being a ‘must have’ feature. While I have to admit this isn’t a cheap table, JessEms certainly haven’t cut any corners in specifying and manufacturing it. The Rout-R table system sings of quality from the moment you pick up the parcels and feel the weight of the materials used. As you unwrap those gorgeous red and black anodised components then feel the solidity of the system bolted together, you realize this machine will be a pleasure to use. The adjustments are sturdy, the scales clearly marked and the movements are smooth. The action on the optional mitre fence is as effortless as it looks – superb. I would expect this system to appeal to the serious amateur or a professional who wants a table for light work, perhaps because they use a spindle moulder for the heavier jobs. I suspect that hard use would soon take the gloss off the appearance of the table system but the only working part likely to degrade with wear is the lift mechanism and some adjustments are possible on this. All in all this is a table worth saving up for.