DIYbanter - View Single Post

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 01:26:18 -0400, (C Ferg) wrote:

I am looking to purchase a router and would like some advice. I want a
decent product, but am a public servant, so I cannot afford a
top-of-the-line router. Can someone recommend a decent starter
model/brand for me? I went to a woodworking store and they told me to go
with the high end model, but i don't know if they just wanted to make
money, or were being honest. I know you get what you pay for, but
there's gotta be a decent starter that won't kill my wallet. Any
suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance, Ferg

Just a heads-up about this one- my wife got me a $60 Duracraft (Farm
and Fleet store brand) router, the first one I ever got, and I used it
for a while. Sometimes it was great, but it was junk for most things.
It worked pretty well for round-overs and ogees and things of that
nature, but it had no capacity for routing dadoes, keyholes, dovetails
or the like. The biggest problem with the sucker was that had a funny
collet system, where you hold in a button, and tighten the nut with
one wrench- no matter how hard I held it, it never quite got tight
enough, and the bits had a tendancy to walk out of the collet.

After nearly turning my palm into hambuger when a bit walked through a
piece of wood when attempting to route a dado, I went out and got a
Porter-Cable 691 with the D-handle. It was on closeout for something
like $130, and it's a lot of tool for the money- I'd recommend it to
anyone.

The main point of all that is that if you get a cheap one hoping to
save some money, you should plan in advance on paying for not only the
cheap sucker, but also the cost of the tool you maybe should have
gotten in the first place. I figure that PC691 cost me $190 in the
end, rather than the $130 sticker price, as the Duracraft is now in
the corner collecting dust... sometimes it's worth it to wait and save
slowly, unless you absolutely *must* have it for a particular job
right now.

http://community.webtv.net/Ferg_/Fergsoutdoor