114VIDEO Router tutorial

In this video I want to help you to understand routers better. Not so much in

terms of using them, but in terms of perhaps buying one for yourself as a

beginner. So the first thing I want to talk about is size. Routers come very

small. This is a little handheld model. It's cordless actually. Works with a

battery. It's a nice little router, but this is not the one you want to start

with. It's great when you've got general-purpose routers for other reasons, but it's not the best thing to choose as a beginner. Now the other end of the

spectrum. Last time I checked this bad boy here was the biggest production

router ever. It's the old Porter Cable Speedmatic. It's been around a long time

and it has about the same amount of power as your average push lawnmower. So

lots of power. More than 3 horsepower. This one also is not the one I'd

recommend for you. It's less of a specialty item than the really tiny

one here, but it's big and it's heavy and sometimes you need that kind of power

But as a beginner it's going to be much more cumbersome for you than it needs to

be because it's just too heavy and too big. It's also fairly expensive too, so

that's why I recommend something in the middle and both of these sorts of

routers would fit into that category. They're small enough that you can do

fairly small work. They're large enough that you can mount it in a table and

it's also large enough that you can do fairly serious handheld work with it

What might that be? Making big grooves in wood for instance for

various joinery operations. A big groove in wood for joinery applications is called a mortise in the world of woodworking. So you can make mortises

with these. You can do all kinds of things. So get something in the middle

Something in the middle. And once you've got that figured out, you need to

consider the two main types of routers in this middle category. And that would

be what are called plunge routers and fixed base routers. A plunge router is a

router like this one that has the capacity to easily plunge the bit into

the workpiece while you're using it. So flip this lever and now you see it can

go down. I can push it down. So imagine there's a router bit there. Well there is

a router bit there. It's not the right kind for plunging. Actually this one here

would be more like the right kind for plunging. It's kind of a straight bit. That's the kind of thing you'd use for cutting a mortise in wood for instance

But here we flip the lever and we can push it down, let go, and it locks again

It's not coming up. We can do our routing. Hit the thumbpiece again and withdraw

the bit from the wood. So that's the purpose of the plunge router. It's

actually a function of the base because this, as I said before in some previous

videos, a router is just an electric motor. And in this case this electric

is being held in this plunge base. So is this one. But in both cases you can

remove the plunge base. Let's see if I can do that conveniently here while I'm

talking. You can remove the plunge base. There we go. And you can replace it with

a fixed base. So I'm essentially losing the capacity to plunge into the work

and retract the bit from the work. And why would I want to lose capacity like

that? Well the reason is because you don't always want that plunge capacity

It's not always a useful thing. And it's also a bit of a

detriment if you're mounting your router in a table. In fact what a lot of guys do

is to leave the fixed base bolted in the router table. And then you can

just flip the lever here and withdraw it. And then put it into the

the plunge base if you want to do some handheld routing. So very convenient that

way. So a medium-sized plunge router would be the most versatile option. But many of the plunge routers do come with a fixed base. So you

can really have the best of both worlds. And there is something else. It kind of

relates to my advice to you before about buying tools. Sometimes, well more

than sometimes, many times you'll get the best value for your money if you buy a

kit. So it might include a couple of power tools or some accessories. You will

get a better deal that way generally. Then you will be buying the product

separately. And this is a case in point. This router here, this Bosch router, it

came as part of a kit. And in this kit we've got the fixed base because there's

the plunge base on the on the router already. And then there's this small

corded handheld router which I've shown you before in some previous videos. So

medium-sized router, plunge base, fixed base, and if at all possible keep your eye

open for specials. These kits seem to be the thing that is most commonly offered

as a special or a sale by manufacturers. And you can get a great deal that's

going to serve you well for an awfully long time