On Oct 4, 4:07*pm, Neil Brooks wrote:
On Oct 4, 2:50*pm, Jim Weisgram

You don't talk about your budget.

Of course, you're correct.

But I think you (and some others) did the right thing, AND gave some
great advice:

A table router -- particularly if you're going to be using it for hand-
held routing, too -- is one of the three or four most commonly used
tools in most shops (no science -- just my edu-ma-cated guess).

It's a great place to buy all the tool you can afford, IMHO.

When we're talking about high-end Porter-Cables, Milwaukees, Bosches,
Tritons, Freuds, Hitachis, and a few other brands ... the price ranges
are pretty tightly clustered, and they're pretty much all beloved by
their users.

The gap between an exceptional table saw and a very good table saw
might be about a grand.

There is more than a grand difference between SawStop, new Unisaw, or
Powermatic ("exceptional") and Grizzley or X5 Unisaw (very good), but
I agree with your points.

Might be.

But the difference between an exceptional router and a very good
router might be about a hundred bucks. *Maybe a little more.

Festool makes a pretty nice router but the premium is closer to 100%
than $100. I wouldn't put a Festeringtool in a table, but I wouldn't
hand-hold the OF2200, either.

This wouldn't be a place to save pennies, IMHO.

On another forum, somebody was hawking a Harbor Freight router ... and
pretty hard.

Not me. *Not this ol' southern boy. *Nuh-uh :-)

Not this carpetbagger, either. ;-)