"L Anthony Johnson" wrote in
:


snip

Essentially, if the 2 1/4 horse power can handle the crown modling
bit, I would perfer to purchase the 895. If it can't, then the
7518 will have to do. More power, sigh. I don't ANTICIPATE having
to do anything more strenuous with the router than creating the
crown molding.


How much of this do you want to do?

What wood?

For the crown molding I"ll be using PINE. Later, when I re-do my
closets, I may be using Oak or Cherry.

I suspect that, for pine or cherry, the smaller HP router would be fine.
Oak may be another story.

The PC 693 router my wife got me for Christmas a couple of years ago has
plenty of power for medium-sized bits, taking reasonable depth cuts, in all
but the hardest woods, for the work I do.




Do you have a table saw, with dado stack, to 'hog out' any portion of
the profile, before taking it to the router table?

I don't have a dado stack, but I do have a table saw jig that cuts
cove molding.


If it were me, I'd go with the bigger router, for a couple of
reasons:

* The 7518 has more horsepower, even if you are considering 'router
horses' here.

* The 7518 has been in production for a lot longer.

* The 7518 uses more metal in its important parts.

* The 89x series has been reported to have bearing heating issues,
for what may be good and valid engineering reasons.

I have read this somewhere else, too.


* You are going to be asking a router to do what, in production
runs, would almost certainly be done on a molding cutter, such as a
W&H, or, perhaps, a shaper, with an induction motor (bigger 'horses',
higher expected duty cycle). Get the biggest router you can, and try
not to over stress it.

I may not have been clear before, but I am only a *hobbyist*. This
router will only be used on the weekends and special projects for
things I build for the home.


What's special about these mouldings that you want to do them
yourself?

Self-Gratification.

I just took up woodworking a little over a year ago and would like to
be able to create moldings, if needed. I created some crown molding
shelves (Oct or Nov 2003 Wood Magazine) sometime ago, that required
popular crown molding. Needless to say, I couldn't find any. That
led me to build the cove molding jig I saw in another Wood magazine.
THe Moldings turned out okay, but required a lot of sanding and
scraping.

This is all a part of my learning process.

If I weren't a hobbyist and time was of the essence, then I probably
would be asking about a millwork company.


Consider getting the 690 series router, rather than the 75xx series.
Various iterations are available with a PC supplied rebate, and they are
both rock-solid and well supported with add-on gear. You give up some of
the potential slick feature set of the 89x series, but you will be highly
unlikely to have a failure with the 690.

Patriarch,
also a hobbyist, but sliding towards the edge of fanaticism...