25 VIDEO INTRODUCTION TO ROUTERS*

So in this video I want to talk to you about routers because so much of my message of making a deck look better than it normally does

comes down to these power tools here and what they can do for you and what they're hardly ever used for when it comes to making a deck

So a router is essentially an electric motor. That's what this is here. It spins quite quickly

20 to 25,000 revolutions per minute so very very fast and a router spins a bit that cuts the wood

essentially and depending on the bit you put in that's the kind of cut that the router is going

to do for you. So with a router you can do things like chamfering the edges of posts so cutting an

angle on them so it looks nice. You can chamfer the edges of deck boards so that they look nicer when

they go together. If it's wood you're working with a chamfered edge will hold the finish better

than an un-chamfered edge. So there's all kinds of applications as I've explained in other parts of

the course and now I want to talk to you about getting your hands on a router for deck construction

If you can only get one then something like this makes sense. This is a I would call this a medium

sized router. It's large enough to be able to do most jobs, small enough to be able to do most jobs

too although not optimally. This is a two and a quarter horsepower and it's as I said it's small

enough that you can maneuver it around and if you're going to get just one then this is the

size to get. Many manufacturers make routers of that size. If I wanted to get my hands on

another router that's really going to help with the smaller details I would go for something

like this because this router is meant to be used with two hands. It's fairly heavy

You'd have to be a very big person indeed to use this router single-handedly but this router is

meant for single-handed use and this is the ideal router for chamfering the edges of deck boards

for instance or we're putting small chamfers on the edges of posts. This is one horsepower

and it's just a great little router. I use it for all kinds of things beyond deck construction

Now this as far as I know this is the largest router in the world. It draws a full 15 amps

of power. It's three and a quarter horsepower. There are a number of routers that are three

and a quarter horsepower but this is physically the largest and the beefiest one that I know of

and this is the kind of router that would make sense for cutting the railing pockets

in the posts. So I discussed this as a whole section about this. It's a very elegant way of

doing railings where they just plug right into a pocket or a mortise cut in the post so there's no

fancy hardware. There's no gimpy toenailing or driving screws in at an angle. It's just

a little bit of timber framing in a fairly simple package that looks great. So before I finish up

I just want to show you what's involved in installing a router bit and adjusting it. The

bit that's in this router now is the one I was using in fact to chamfer some deck boards that

I was working on not too long ago. A router like this can accept many different kinds of bits

The way you change them is by grabbing the shaft that spins. Well first of all you've got to make

sure you're unplugged because you don't want any nasty surprises if this were to go turn on

accidentally while you're working on it. So you can see the shaft spins there. I need to lock that

shaft and loosen that nut. Now this particular router has a red button. A lot of them have

buttons like this. If I push this button in and I turn this a bit, the shaft is now locked

If I didn't have that, if the machine didn't have that feature, it's going to have

the feature you see here too. A place to actually put the wrench on the shaft. They give us this

but we don't necessarily need to use it because we can lock the shaft with this little button

With the shaft locked I can put another wrench on and I can loosen that

Now the router bit comes out. It's a chamfer bit. There's a bearing that runs along the side of

a piece of wood that regulates the cut. So the width of the chamfer is a function of

how much the bit sticks out from the base. So when you're installing a bit, you don't want to

put it in all the way. That would be a mistake. You need to have it out a little bit so that

you can adjust this up or down as much as you need to. So let me just pull it out a little bit

Some routers don't have a whole lot of depth here. So if you push it in, what's going to bottom

out is not what you see bottoming out here, the actual body of the bit. But the shaft will bottom

out in the bottom of the shaft of the router and you don't want it to bottom out because there is

a chance that if it does bottom out, the fingers in here aren't going to grip the shaft properly

So you always want to withdraw it a little bit before you tighten things up

We'll just tighten that up, finger tight, and then give it a tighten. We're ready to go. Now as I said, the width of chamfer is a function of

how much of the bit sticks out. So I'm turning this wheel, I'm lowering the base. You can see

that more of the bit is sticking out and I can reduce it. For chamfering deck boards

you just want a little chamfer. Maybe something like that. It's sticking out a little bit. But

I would never use this router on a deck board that I cared about without first testing it

Because I can eyeball that and take a guess at how wide the chamfer is going to be. But I really

like to see that before that happens. And that's kind of it. Routers in a nutshell