Now I remember...............

[Dale Cruea]

Now I remember part of the reason I gave up power tools for woodworking.

I have a project going that needs to have the edges profiled.
I purchased hollows and rounds to do this.
After much work and reading I have not gotten them to work for me on the profile I want.

OK, I say. I will go against the grain and use a power router. yuck....

I find the router bit that is real close to what I want.
I dig out my old router.
It is a mess. I clean the collet, blow out the crud from the motor.
Hmmmm where are the wrenches... 20 minutes of looking. Aaaa there they are. Stored with the router.

Ready to insert the bit. Hmmm the hole in the base is too small. Custom base I made for some reason.
Another 20 minutes looking for the base.
Found the correct base..... different screws. Custom base base has countersunk screw heads for some reason.

Yep... another 10 minutes looking for the screws.

After almost a hour of looking and messing with this electron killer I notice the cord is frayed and should be taped up.
5 minutes there.

I am tired of messing with this thing...

I have been over an hour and I have not even turned it on yet.
Frustration level is in the red and going higher.

Now I remember part of the reason I gave up power tools.

COFFEE TIME.

After all this messing around as I was profiling my board I remembered.... I have another router.... DUH...
All of it is in a nice bag, all together and ready to use.

Still an electron killer.

Much coffee has been consumed this day.

[ray hampton]

you need a second cup of coffee

[george wilson]

Personally,I HATE using routers. They make a mess out of the whole area!!! I have about 4 of them,but haven't used them in years. If necessary,I set up the work and do it on the milling machine with form cutters I make,holding a vacuum hose close to the cutting. Since I do mostly small work,it works out well. For a large piece of furniture...... Into the woodworking machine mess wing,and run the exhaust fan at the rear. In addition,if I want a quick downdraft table,I take the throat plate out of the table saw,and turn on the dust collector and the exhaust fan both. Working near the throat of the saw works quite well,and it has a 6" dust pipe to the collector. I can set big blocks of wood behind the throat to help funnel the downdraft into the throat. I have no room at all for a downdraft table.

When I was 21,I had a Stanley router at the school shop I taught at. I had a 1/2" straight bit in it,and hadn't put the base on. I turned the router on,and it started with such torque that it twisted out of my hands. It went vertically right down to the floor,and spun like a top. The bit was half gone against the concrete floor before I could jerk the plug out!!

When I was in high school,I was routing,roughing out an arch top for a guitar. The chuck came loose from the router and dug into the top,ruining it. Fortunately,it didn't ruin ME!!!!! The silly chuck was just pressed onto a 1/2" long,slightly tapered shaft,no threads. I wasn't abusing the router,either. Just POOR engineering.

[ray hampton]

now this is what I call the good oohh days

[Harlan Barnhart]

Routers have screwed up more projects for me than any other tool. It amazing how you can spend a lot time creeping up on the proper depth little by little and before you know it, "HOW DID THAT GET TOO DEEP?"