Best router for £500 fish

[deema]

@againstthegrain you might be right, but that size of router always seems to end up inverted

 

[Rallymantony]

A Spindle moulder is a router table on steroids. It usually has either a 30mm or 1 1/4” spindle driven by a dedicated motor. The whole system is built robustly which enables it to take large tooling. It can cut a door rebate in one pass, none of this taking tiny cuts, you make the cut in one pass.
It uses cutter blocks, which can be a bit pricey initiall, but you get your money back when you sell them. About the same price as a big router cutter. You then buy cutters to fit into, for instance the Euro 40mm cutters come in standard profiles, about 200 off. They cost around £20 for a set of cutters and limiters or £10 just for the cutter which is what does tge work. You can get any profile custom made for around £50.
A spindle is about the most flexible machine there is. Usually every professional shop will have at least one.
Loads of Utube stuff…….but read up how to use them properly……not how a lot show them being used.

Thank you Deema I'll research them this weekend. I'm looking for a replacement handheld router at the moment though so one thing at time....

 

[deema]

@Rallymantony no worries, if you want a router take a look at the Elu routers. I’ve been educated by @Sideways about routers, and the Elu brand made probably the best ever routers. They aren’t made anymore, and you should look out for the Swiss made units. they did a few sizes, but this one on eBay is the most powerful and largest, it’s brand new in box, Swiss made and on the money fir your budget. I’ve seen them sell for an awful lot more than this.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35400156...8mfAKrtRtW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[deema]

@Rallymantony there us also a cheaper one on ebay. A few more miles on the clock!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/27537392...8mfAKrtRtW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
I personally have a MOF96 like this, which I love (I actually dont like routers) for when a hand held router is what’s needed. It’s the smallest they did
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35416635...8mfAKrtRtW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
I also have a MOF 98 that is in the middle of the range, has a big motor and can take a 1/2” router bit. I primarily use it to make templates for curved work on the spindle moulder!!!!

 

[Spectric]

Why is that we seem to have a mental block with spindle moulders, have the router OEM's done such a good job in marketing they have some how brain washed us because the spindle just seems elusive yet can do so much for less cash.

 

[deema]

@Rallymantony Heres a simple example of what is really easy with a spindle moulder, that I couldn’t make with a router.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/custom-spindle-moulder-cutters.129202/

 

[deema]

@Rallymantony Now if you want a ‘proper’ router, you could for your budget easily get a pin router. Sideways and I are helping a friend to renovate one.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/scm-super-router-refurbishment.136824/

 

[Against_The_Grain]

Why is that we seem to have a mental block with spindle moulders, have the router OEM's done such a good job in marketing they have some how brain washed us because the spindle just seems elusive yet can do so much for less cash.

Well, I personally think a lot of it can be blamed on the woodworking magazines of the 80s and 90s whose main advertisers were router and router bit manufacturers, so a lot of the projects back then revolved around routers and table routers to keep them happy, a lot of it was very gimmicky and if you were to look back on some of the projects and jigs they were coming up with you would think to yourself "What were they thinking...". Back then, it was more about making a cheap table router out of scraps of plywood, rather than what they've morphed into today with hobbyists seeking out cast iron constructed table routers with inbuilt router motors, powered lifts, Bluetooth connectivity, etc which totally defeats the original idea of the table router, which was essentially to emulate a spindle moulder on a budget, but now some of these contraptions actually cost as much or more than some brand new spindle moulders!

Here's an example of a quite cringeworthy video from that time period, music and all!



Some of the blame can also be placed on spindle moulder operators themselves of times gone by, running the machines with a flagrant disregard for safety which resulted in a high number of injuries from ejected cutters, cutter contacts with appendages, and workpieces being shot across the room like an arrow which gave the machine a sordid reputation, despite the causation always being operator error. Modern chip limiting tooling has made the danger of the machine much less severe with safety features such as pinned knifes to prevent ejection and limiters which limit the amount of material that can be removed in a single revolution which drastically reduces the risk of kickback which in turn also reduces the risk of hand contact with the cutters as the most common time a contact occurs with a spindle moulder is during a kickback event, and it also prevents your hand being pulled further into the machine upon a contact should it happen, which results in severe lacerations rather than complete amputation.

 

[Jake]

hy is that we seem to have a mental block with spindle moulders, have the router OEM's done such a good job in marketing they have some how brain washed us because the spindle just seems elusive yet can do so much for less cash.

Mine is a bit hard to handle hand-held despite being a mini one (Electra-Beckum).

More seriously spindle moulders are particularly great it you want to do decent run of one thing and want to bang it out (even better with a power feed which I don't have, so end up dialling back for lighter cuts than it could do).

If you're doing smaller runs of this and then that, then this, on a smaller project, the cutter changing time with a router is a big time saver unless you were to have a block for every profile (at which point the router looks super-cheap). It's an economy of scale thing. The router table has a lot of advantages on its side too. I rarely use my SM - the occasional sustained run of something or a big deep cut or a particular profile (another superiority, getting cutters ground fairly cheaply to spec). Mine has a sliding table which my router table does not which is handy sometimes and was great for tenons but for time these days it'll be XL dominos almost always - again just saving set up time for the SM and the morticer, which would be irrelevant if doing decent multiples.

 

[Jake]

By the way just to be clear I do not condone using routers on any living thing aquatic or otherwise, irrespective of value,

 

[monster]

You may not have noticed but Festool do go to most woodworking shows to show of their wares, handling and trying their router did not do anything for me and the one thing I really hated about it was the stick out handle that made it feel like it should be used in the vertical. When you pick up a router with just two normal handles it feels balanced and freindly, that Festool did not. I also own an XL 700, infact I have had it for over 18 months and so far it has produced nothing, it also feels wrong and as I have said before it is like owning a riffle with a bent barrel because it can make a nice hole but not always where you want it so I go back to my Dowelmax, slow but a lot moe precision and I am currently thinking about the Jessem jig because that may be a faster doweling jig than my dowlmax.

Next time you are at one of the Festool Exhibitions, ask the demonstrators there how to use your XL 700!

 

[TRITON]

I think one of the main problems is we accumulate tools before , eventually, finding out whats best and what we should have bought.
So many pennies wasted on this and that ,ive personally spend hundreds on a big collection of chisels, and none of them were really that good. Had i originally bought a good set i'd likely have far far less.
Same with machinery and power tools.
I've 3 routers adding up to about 700, but I hanker over the festool ones as i know its in comparison a far better piece of kit.

Im a bit like this with my Ebike.
I first bought a set of Hope brakes(E4,X2) costing £360. Before even using them i thought those probably wouldnt be powerful enough and bought a 2nd set (V4), priced at 400, and I havent even used the first lot yet, they've still in their bags. So to get the brakes i need, instead of spending 400, ive spent 760.
Worse yet, the company (Hope) just gifted me a goodwill gesture of another set of brakes, though just the disc calipers, which are 100 quid each. So I've 3 sets of high end disc brakes, all new and as yet unfitted because im faffing about.
So I've now got nearly a grands worth of brakes

And worse is to come. The barstewards have an Ebike specific brake - The Tech 4, which are more powerful . Retails at 400. So I'll have to sell all the brakes i have to get this more Ebike specific set.

Oh the joys of hindsight.

 

[Bob008]

I bought a 3hp Hitachi and was so pleased with it I bought another to perm hang under my router table…
not as fancy as the overpriced Festool but just smooth n good…

Have you got a link for the 3hp hitachi I’m struggling to find one
Thanks bobby

 

[deema]

@Bob008 Hitachi rebranded their tools Hikoki.
https://www.toolstation.com/hikoki-...OkbXz1TUpABm_sTc7khoCsrgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
i have to say, I can’t imagine why anyone would want 2KW motor in a hand held router. Can perhaps understand why you would have one in a router table, but then again, I’d have a Spindle Moulder, the smaller of which have a 2.2KW motor inside them.

 

[rogxwhit]

I can’t imagine why anyone would want 2KW motor in a hand held router

Sounds like you've never trenched a pair of stair strings, then? ;-)

 

[Rallymantony]

So are the Hikoki any good? You can't ignore the price element but I guess it all comes down to accessories and fittings I guess

 

[MikeJhn]

Or a masons mitre in a 50mm worktop.

 

[MikeJhn]

Had a Hitachi in my UJK router table with a Muscle Chuck for ten years never any problems with it, unlike the Triton, terrible to use you have to grope around under the table to unlock the thing when changing a bit and if fitted in a Triton table the lift is under the fence, bad design.

 

[Rallymantony]

I'm now thinking hard about the Dewalt. I've never liked Dewalt tools to be honest, back in 2000 when I started my company I went for Metabo drills, bought 10 of them for myself and the guys, loved them and are still in use today, one of the lads decided that the Metabo was to heavy and so went and bought himself a Dewalt, and although it was yellow, I assumed it was actually made of toffee as it softer then a flower picking southerner.... (My wife and I grow flowers and yes we are southern ...), that drill went back under warranty more times then I can remember before the lad finally ended up binning it....... All within 14 months IIRC..... It';s always stuck in my mind that Dewalt are to be avoided but maybe I'm wrong?...

 

[deema]

@rogxwhit ….your right never trenched a stair string with a router.
@MikeJhn yep, mason mitres on 50mm + with just over 1KW. But I cut them virtually to shape / size as it’s far quicker to just trim it up with a router and template after the bulk is gone. Always use a fresh bit, as they dull fast in particle board.