After sizing the stock for the handles and blades, the trickiest procedure was cutting the slot mortise in the handle. To make the cuts safely I made a sliding tenon jig that rides on my tablesaw fence (shown here).

I made cardboard templates for the handle and blade profiles, and then cut them with the band saw.

Here are the finished parts. I used persimmon for the blades and two of the handles and cherry for the other two handles. Persimmon is very hard (only North American wood that is in the ebony family).

I used a small steel square during glueup, positioned on the inside of the handle and blade, to keep the corner bridle joint square while I pinned the pieces together with 23 gauge nailer. After the glue dried, I used my shooting board to square up the top side of the blade.

I used my framing square to check for square. With the parts held against the light any irregularities can be easily seen.

The inside square was trued up using my scrapper and fine sandpaper and checked with the framing square.

Here are the four finished TrySquares. The cherry handles make for a nice contrast with the lighter persimmon blades. The persimmon, when sanded, had a 'soapy' feel since it is so hard and smooth. I impregnated the knot at the bottom of one of the persimmon handles with marine epoxy to stabilize it. Yes, I kept the knot on purpose, I think it adds character.

All joints in the carcase for this router table are either dadoed or rabbeted. Note also that the back is recessed from the rear for added rigidity and ease in mounting both the top and the entire router table to a base or work surface.

The drawer slides (made of 1/2 x 1/2 inch oak strips) were glued to the sides before the glue-up was done. Here is a photo of the glue-up. The downside of the interlocking dado's and rabbets are that the entire assembly must be glued up at the same time, but on the plus side they help ensure the carcase is square.

Here is a photo of the top mounted with router installed. The top was made of melamine covered particle board with a 1/2 inch piece of plywood epoxied to its underside and a 3/4 inch x 2 inch oak trim mitered around the edges. The cutout and recess for router plate was done as follows: I clamped scrap blocks around all four sides of the router plate itself to ensure an exact fit, then removed the plate, and used double-face tape to secure additional 1/2 inch spacer blocks in its place. This allowed plunge routing cuts to remove the center waste and leave a 1/2 inch perimeter. After removing the spacer blocks and outside scrap blocks, this perimeter was used with router guide bushings to rout the recess that holds the router plate. The 7 inch tall router fence with T-slots and a wide router push block are also shown.

The finished project with the drawers installed, hold-down fence installed and oak facing on Plywood carcase. The drawers have cherry wood pulls. A re-movable 3/4 inch thick plywood insert in the drawers has 1/2 holes drilled for holding router bits. The router handles were removed to allow the underside router body bit height clamp and spindle lock button to be positioned to the front of the table for easy access. This also allowed the bit height adjustment crank hole to be positioned so that it would be in front of the fence as well. Only after optimization of the router controls was determined were the holes in the router plate drilled to accept the router base.