Small Routers

[Mrs C]

Another vote for Katsu at £38 from Aimtools, had mine for donkeys years and gets far more use than my bigger router.

 

[John Hughes01]

I had a small B&D plunge router which I bought second hand many years ago. Plastic construction so when that gave way I simply pop rivetted ally bits on. Anyway,recently it went bang so took it apart to find that one sealed bearing it had virtually seized up causing one segment to go out - oh,how I miss the growlers from work days! Just did a test meter check. Left bearing in penetrating oil for a couple of days - no change so bought another bearing, put it back together and it worked - for two minutes. I'd gotten (sorry,I spend a lot of time in Texas) so missed it, Bought an identical model for under £20 on EBay which was in it's box and like new! Sorry to go on but the of the morel of this story is to keep your sealed bearing lubricated. Oh, I had forgotten that I had left the old bearing in the penetrating oil for about a week and found it was as good as new - so there's another moral!

 

[Lons]

I have the Makita 700 corded, the full kit including angle and plunge bases etc. Had it for years and it's my go to for hand routing and has been faultless so far. I still like my ancient little Elu 96E which though suspect that's more sentimental than practical and these days the two large routers are rarely used hand held with one set up permanently in the router table.

 

[gfisher]

I use the cordless Makita DRT50 (Makita product page) Whilst I've very little experience in either woodworking or other manufacturers, this has been faultless.

A few things I like...

• power and batter life are fine
• I can vary the speed,
• base plate is big enough without being cumbersome on small pieces
• base plate is perfectly round - great if using in a jig
• dust extraction whilst a faff is effective
• weight is nice balance between heavy enough to feel planted to the surface but not too heavy that I can use it in odd angle (which you probably shouldn't, so don't try that at home kids)

That said, I *think* my advice first would be to stick to whatever battery system you have - Makita, Bosch, DeWalt etc.

As evidence I humbly submit...

The inside of the bowl really was using a router, I wanted to see if I could

 

[Spectric]

my advice first would be to stick to whatever battery system you have

I am 110 corded for everything except my smaller drills so am not tied to any battery platform for routers and such which makes things easier.