Router woes

[Wildman]

Two cheapo 1/4" routers one of them a trend, not sure of the other but both have the same problem the straight sided cutters walk out of the chuck, only happened today had to change over to a decent 1/2" one to get the job done not really investigated, cutters part of two different sets were tried. not sure yet if it is a bunged up collet or an imp/metric problem, ideas please. How did you solve it

 

[dizjasta]

Hi Wildman can you measure the shanks of the router bits that "walk out of the chuck". This is a serious issue. It could be you are inserting 6mm dia shaft cutters into a 1/4" collet. Be careful. Let us know what you find out regarding the shaft sizes.

 

[Ollie78]

As above could be 6mm in a 6.35 ( 1/4 inch) but this is not normally enough to make it slip, it should be able to grip 0.35 of a mm tighter. Could be an 8mm socket but you would surely notice that amount of difference.
I had trouble with a collet on a Triton router once where you could do it up till it felt tight but it was a sort of false positive, it was binding without compressing the bit properly. I took it all to bits and thouroughly cleaned it all up and it was ok.
Some collets are a much better design than others it seems.

Ollie

 

[Spectric]

Make sure you are not bottoming the cutters in the router.

 

[worn thumbs]

Make sure you are not bottoming the cutters in the router.

That would be my first check too.I have used a 6mm shank in a 1/4" collet several times with no problems,so I wouldn't expect problems from that source.

 

[MikeJhn]

I use a rubber O ring in the bottom of my Router collets to prevent bottoming, seems to have worked for the last twenty years.

 

[Wildman]

ok I checked the collet is 1/4 and so is the shank of the bit all cleaned out with an airline and reamer to clean the collet (hand spun so not cutting metal, ha ha) will have a go later today. I'd no idea bottoming a cutter could cause a problem, never thought about it before. so something else to try. It is the most obvious explaination when thinking about it. I must admit to not using a router that much over the years so could well be me.

 

[MikeJhn]

The main reason for not bottoming the cutter is, as you tighten the collet it grips and lowers the bit and the collet and bit get jammed together making it very difficult to remove the bit, this would not cause it to become loose, in fact the opposite.

Try a different quality bit, could just be a rouge one.