Simple idea to make a homemade router from a drill | FREE PLANS

When I recently saw my router and cordless drill next to each other, I wondered if I would be able to put a router bit in my drill and achieve the same result as with my router.

So I made this homemade router jig as an experiment.

I wanted to test this idea to see if it really works.
This test was to inspire people who do not have a router or cannot buy a router for whatever reason.

I can already tell you, it works!
But I have to say it doesn’t work as I expected, and when you think about it, it makes sense.
The rpm of a router is 10 times higher than the rpm of a drill.

This homemade router jig is a great alternative if you don’t have a router, but don’t expect the same results.

If you want better results, I recommend buying a router.
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog with tips to compare routers and find the best one for your workshop. You can find that blog over here.

If you also want to experiment with this homemade router jig, you can download the FREE PLANS on this blog, and check out the step-by-step building process below.

Disclosure: At zero cost to you, I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post. I earn from qualifying purchases as an Amazon associate. Products featured are selected based on quality, performance, and reputation, regardless of affiliate relationships.

Watch the video here & learn how to make a homemade router

Here you can watch the video and see how to make the homemade router.
After watching the video, you can continue reading the step-by-step guide to making this drill hack yourself. 

How to make a router from a drill

Step 1 | Preparation

I started this homemade router project by making round wood.

Because of the jig that I can add to my crosscut sled, I have the option of making my own round wood in the diameter that I want.
For this homemade router jig, I made round wood with a diameter of 30 mm.

You can watch the video here of how I made this jig a long time ago to make round wood myself.

Step 2 | Making the base

The base of this homemade router jig is made from two elongated pieces of plywood.
The narrower part is the jig’s base, and the wider part is the movable part where the drill is clamped.

Two shallow holes have been drilled in the base where the two pieces of round wood will be placed later.
A smaller hole is made in the middle, through which the router bit can go.
In the movable piece, 2 holes are also drilled for the round wood, with the difference that the holes were made all the way through the wood.
A large hole was made in the middle for the drill to pass through and clamp it in this place.

To make sure the holes were drilled opposite each other, I attached the two parts with the painter’s tape.

The ends were made narrower in order to be able to clamp the movable part to the round timber.

I did this by drilling a hole at the four intersections of the lines that you can see in the photo below. To make these holes, I used a 16 mm Forstner drill. After drilling the holes, I could cut out the corners.

Once the corners were cut, I come to make a slot in the middle of the narrowing.
By bringing these pieces together, by clamping with a bolt, this part can be secured to the round wood.
You will discover more about this later in this blog.

To clamp these pieces, a hole was drilled through the wood.
I did this with a drill with a diameter of 8 mm.

To fix the bolt in the wood, I made a notch with the same opening as the width of the bolt head.

Now that the basic parts for this jig were ready, I made the clamping part with which the drill can be fixed to this jig.

To make the clamping part I took a piece of plywood in which I drilled a hole with a hole drill of 54 mm.

Then I cut this part in half and cut out a small piece of it.
This gave me the opportunity to bring these two parts closer together and to be able to clamp the drill.

In order to bring these parts closer together, so the drill can be clamped, holes had to be drilled in these parts. That way, a threaded rod could be placed through.

I made the holes slightly larger than the diameter of the threaded rod of 8 mm.

In the smallest part of this clamp system, I placed two t nuts through which the threaded rod can be placed in order to clamp the drill.

This is the part that can move freely over the jig.

The biggest part of this clamping system was secured to the homemade router jig with wood glue and brad nails.

Step 3 | Homemade knobs to keep the jig in place

To make clamping easier, I made my homemade buttons.
I did this with a jig that I made earlier.

In this blog, I will show you step by step how to make this jig, and you can also download the free plans.

For this homemade router jig, I needed four buttons.
Two of these buttons are provided with a nut, and two of these buttons are attached to a piece of threaded rod by means of epoxy glue.

Step 4 | Assembling the homemade router jig

Now that all parts were ready, I could start assembling the homemade router jig.
First, I attached the round wood to the base of the jig.

To make screwing easier and to make sure that the wood does not split, I first drilled a small hole.
After applying wood glue, I was able to attach the two parts together by means of a screw.

Once the epoxy glue had dried, these bolts could also be attached to the homemade router jig.
To protect the wood, a washer was placed over the bolt.

In the same way, the smaller bolts were installed to be able to clamp this part to the round wood.

Now this homemade router jig was ready.

When you made this homemade router jig yourself, to start using it, you need to clamp the drill into the jig with the middle knobs. After that, you can set the homemade router jig to the needed height using the outer knobs.