I received a new toyl and thought I’d post some observations. First off is that the plunge base had an issue. I would ‘catch’ at the top of the stroke and required quite a bit of pressure to start the plunge. Once off the top it was fine. If I applied pressure first to the left hand it wouldn’t catch. I called Grizzly, they suggested removing one snap ring, remove the casting that holds the router from the base and see if there was anything noticeably wrong. There wasn’t, one spring assembly had a catch in it but I couldn’t see a problem. They sent me a whole new router, I unpacked only the plunge base and inserted the original motor. It was fine, no problem with the plunge stroke. Grizzly had already sent me a prepaid UPS label so I packed everything up and sent it on its way. The tech I talked to said they hadn’t gotten many calls on this model.
As for the machine itself, it seems to be what I expected. The plunge base does seem to have been designed by a left handed designer. (I can hear the lefties on here saying “Yeah! ‘bout time!!)The plunge lock and power switch are on the left. The handles are mounted at an angle so the plunge base is most comfortable when held with the plunge base held one way compared to other. There is also a chip shield that works one way and not the other. This doesn’t apply to the fixed base.
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The machine comes with one collet wrench and a shaft lock button. I’m not fond of the one wrench arrangement and noticed there were two flats ground into the shaft just above the collet. Calipers said the flats were 12.87 mm apart. Hmmm, it looked like a thin 13 mm wrench would fit nicely. I remembered something about a bicycle wrench that people bought for the Bosch Colt before Bosch began including two wrenches. A minute’s searching produced a cone wrench. Another minute’s searching on Ebay found what I was looking for in China for $2.99 free shipping. The posting said to expect delivery between July 25 & August 27. Previous experience said it wouldn’t take that long so I ordered it on June 25. It shipped on June 26 and I got it July 5.
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The motor seems smooth, the variable speed is linear and powerful enough for what I bought the machine for. The collet is the standard 2 piece and seems well machined. There is an attachment that is supposed to serve as a guide when mounted under the bit. The rolling doodad is pretty sloppy and not a bearing. If I were to use it much I’d probably modify it to be more snug. The edge guide works I guess but is not as well designed as the Porter Cable edge guide for example. I’m not sure how often this class machine would use an edge guide so it may not be a big deal.
I was able to buy this on a Father’s Day promotion for $59.99 + 12.99 shippping. I had a Bosch Colt that I sold for $57 so it cost me about $20 to get a plunge base and probably a better adjusting mechanism on the fixed base. The Fixed base uses a rack and pinion mechanism which is probably not as good for fine adjustments as the Bosch Colt – if the Bosch fine height adjustment mechanism worked better. The rack on the Griz router is machined into the motor housing and seems to work as expected. If the Bosch plunge base weren’t $77+ I may have gotten the Bosch plunge base and not sold the Bosch Colt. As it is I saved about $50 and don’t think the Grizzly router is a downgrade from the Bosch Colt.
The pics aren't in the order I wanted but I hope you'll get the idea.
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Originally Posted by John TenEyck
