![]() You’ll need one or two wrenches to tighten the nut. A nut surrounds the collet and threads onto the spindle to secure the bit. They were once commonplace, but most routers these days are modular: a removable motor pack fits both fixed and plunge bases to maximize versatility.Ĭollets: the Business End Bit shanks are held inside the router motor’s tapered spindle with either a 1/2″ or 1/4″ collet. Manufacturers still produce a few dedicated plunge routers where the motor and base are integral. Each click of the turret changes the cutting depth incrementally by about 1/8″, and those changes can be read off of a depth scale behind the rod. You control cutting depth using an adjustable rod that makes contact with a stepped and swiveling turret. “Plunge” bases turn that relationship on its ear: the motor clamps into a top housing on the base, and the housing can be raised or lowered on two spring-loaded metal posts to adjust the cutting depth - here, the motor is “fixed,” but the base plunges it to different depths. Once you set and lock the motor where you want it, the base remains otherwise “fixed.” A plunge base’s depth-setting features include an adjustable rod, depth scale and a stepped, rotating turret below them. The “fixed” base has a large collar, a threaded rod or other height adjustment feature that enables you to move the motor up or down inside the base to change the cutting depth of the bit. A sharp bit attached to the end of the motor’s spindle does the cutting work. A universal motor points downward and is held in a base that typically has a couple of handles to help you steer it over a workpiece. The reason a vintage router or a brand-new one work almost equally well has to do with the tool’s simplicity: strip away the advanced electronics and feature enhancements made over the past two or three decades, and all routers really boil down to a few basic parts. It can even surface plane, joint edges flat, carve lettering, cut circles and bore holes. ![]() Need to duplicate a bunch of parts? That’s no problem for a router and a template. It will machine dadoes and grooves, rabbets, dovetails, mortises, tenons, box joints and more. If you’re a woodworking novice, I’ll go so far as to say it should rank near the top of your “short list” of tools to buy first, even ahead of a table saw - routers are that useful.Ī router can help you turn sharp edges into decorative profiles of all sorts. Whether you use a router made long before you were born, like the 1950s Stanley or one of the technologically advanced models built today, either machine can perform a range of essential woodworking tasks that can’t be bested by any other power tool.
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