I used one sheet of 3/4” 4×8 Baltic Birch plywood purchased at McKillican. I’ve never seen baltic at a big box store, so if you don’t live near a place with a commercial building supply store, then any 3/4” ply will substitute nicely. Just try to find a piece that’s pretty flat. After creating all of the components in SketchUp, I added the pieces to CutList Optimizer and generated a parts list. We used our Makita Track Saw and Grizzly Table Saw to make all of the cuts.

Measure accurately for all of the parts. The plans include precise measurements and the parts fit tightly. “Close enough” probably won’t do. When marking, I prefer to use my Incra T-Rule and Woodpeckers Edge Rule over a tape measure.

• Mark the side panels and cut out notches. I used a band saw but a jig saw could work if you are careful.
• Carefully mark and center punch the holes that the 3/4” pipe will pass through. Drill a total of 4 holes, 2 in the side panels and 2 in the rotating box side pieces.
• Notch the top and bottom pieces for the rotating box.

Using pocket screws, I assembled all of the base pieces. The base construction might be a bit overdone, but I wanted to prevent racking and provide more weight to the bottom for added stability. There just wasn’t enough room for a drawer at the bottom since I didn’t want to climb a ladder to use the router table. In other situations, I might make the bottom a drawer.

• Mark a line where the base will be attached to the side panel and apply wood glue below that line
• Attach side panels using 1 1/4” screws.
• Using 1” screws, attach the rubber feet to the base.
• Attach casters to the side panels by following the provided assembly instructions.

I chose these particular casters because of the total height requirements for the project. They project out from the base quite a bit though. If it weren’t for the height requirement, I would use bottom mount casters. To keep myself from stubbing my toe on the casters, I’m going to add a french cleat storage system to the side panels for storing router bits and sander parts.

Attach the rotating box sides and bottom to each other using pocket screws and glue. Don’t attach the top piece yet!

I turned the rotating box base over, centered my spindle sander on it and then marked where the holes should line up to anchor the base to the sander. Then, I drilled 1/4” holes for the anchor bolts. I also marked the optimal place for the sander power cord to pass through into the rotating box, keeping in mind that the edge of the holes needed to be at least 3/4” from the edges. Then we drilled 1” holes to pass the cord through. We epoxied the anchor bolts from the inside so that the sander or router can be removed without dissembling the rotating box. I repeated all of these steps for the router on the top piece of the flip box.

We drilled a 1/2” hole to pass the power cord through about 5 inches from the pipe edge and lined it with a grommet to protect the cord. Then we cut the pipe to the outside width of the assembled side panels.

The 3/4” pipe fits pretty tight so be prepared to hammer it in.  Use some sort of block or cap to prevent mushrooming the end.  We didn’t and that caused us some pain later.  Hammer the pipe into one side of the side panel until 2 washers will fit on the pipe.  Hold op the rotating box and hammer the pipe through both holes until another two washers will fit on the outside of the other end, Then hammer it until it passes through the hole in the other side panel.

Drill a hold in one of the mending plates that fits the size of the grommet for your power cord.  Secure the grommet in the mending plate and slide it on to the plug end of the power cord after it is cut. Don’t forget to slide the grommeted mending plate onto the plug side before passing the cord through the pipe.

I cut the power strip cord about 6″ from the strip end and then passed the cord through the end of the pipe and the grommet.  Then we pushed the grommet into place.  It took quite a bit of force.  Then I soldered the wires back together and added heat shrink tubing and some tape.  It would have been easier to just use wire nuts and just about as good.  Attach power strip to inside of the flip box and test it.

We lowered the sander on to the anchor bolts and securely attached it.  Then we passed the cord through the hole and plugged it into the power strip, tying up the extra slack with a couple of zip ties.

We lowered the router on to the anchor bolts and securely attached it.  Then we passed the power cord through the hole.  We lifted the rotating box top with the attached router onto rotating box base and plugged it in.  Then we screwed down the rotating box top using 1 1/4″ screws.