Plunge router recommedations

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Bung

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#2014866 12-May-2018 18:29

mdf:
Bung: It may seem like doubling up but don't make the same mistake I nearly made. I was overusing my good 1/4" on exterior projects. To replace that would take a lot more than $150.

You make an *excellent* point. If I can get you to contact Mrs MDF and convince her of that...? 😀

I have a project coming up that will have a materials cost of about $2500, I should be able to bury a $150 tool in that no trouble. I realised that if I burnt out the very good small router doing heavy work it would cost around $700 to get the current model. Then I'd be stuck with using a cheap one from then on. So long as you're building something Mrs MDF wants I don't see a major problem.

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mdf

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#2014883 12-May-2018 18:44

neb: Isn't it cool? Electronic linear speed control instead of having to change belts around every time you switch materials, and the only (lower-priced) drill press I've ever seen that at least has a passable table rather than some piece of junk whose only purpose is to bolt a real table to it. I'm not thrilled about the wheel rather than a standard pull handle (what were they thinking?), but apart from that it's finally a drill press that's escaped from the 1920s. Just the electronic speed control alone makes it worth the extra cost, I usually end up drilling at some one-size-misfits-all speed because I don't want to spend more time messing with the mechanism than actually drilling.

I thought the wheel was a turnoff too - def makes it harder to use since you have to awkwardly adjust your grip instead of spinning your palm on a lever.

But I think the reason is that the whole drilling mechanism moves up and down. When you're working with it very close to the bench, there isn't enough clearance for levers.

Totally +1 on the variable speed control. I don't know of anyone who ever bothers faffing around with the belts.

neb

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#2014887 12-May-2018 18:50

mdf: I thought the wheel was a turnoff too - def makes it harder to use since you have to awkwardly adjust your grip instead of spinning your palm on a lever.

But I think the reason is that the whole drilling mechanism moves up and down. When you're working with it very close to the bench, there isn't enough clearance for levers.

Ah, yeah, that makes sense. So they were actually thinking :-).

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