On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:41:05 +0100, "jg" wrote:

Argos have a cheap Challenge router on sale for £10 (half price)
I was wondering if anyone had used this model? Is it suitable for table
mounting.

I realise that it's not going to be great, but I just wanted to try making a
basic router table rather than clamping my current router upside down in my
workmate.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated


It depends really on what you want to achieve.

Normally in a router table if you want to do anything of note, a
12.7mm router is needed and with a motor rating of at least 1500W
efficiently delivered. Sadly, the low end 12.7mm routers, although
they have claimed power levels of 1800-2000W, have such poor motors
that they perform very badly under load. To that point, 12.7mm routers
start to become decent at around the £160-170 price point with
products like Freud.

A router with 6.5 and 8mm collets is really a 6.5mm router in terms of
power and although I don't have direct experience of this particular
model, I suspect that it is going to be very underpowered even
compared with a decent 6.5mm router like a Trend T5.

However, to put it nto perspective, if you are looking for something
to try out for little cost and are looking to make smallish things
like bits for doll's houses, then this could be worth trying out.
Don't think in terms of large cutters and panel raising, though. This
is simply not going to do that, or for that matter anything else too
much larger than model stuff.

At £10, it might be worth a try as long as you don't mind writing off
£10. If you decide that you want to get into using a router table
seriously, then it becomes about a £250 investment for a decent router
plus a reasonable insert and mechanics that you could put into your
own home made table.

However, even though this is an entry level type of solution that you
are thinking about, please implement it safely because it will still
be quite enough to mangle your hands or other bits badly.





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..andy

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