Woodworking

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A handmade home for woodworkers and admirers of woodworkers. Our community icon is submitted by @[email protected] whose father was inspired to start woodworking by Norm and the New Yankee Workshop.

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Which do you prefer: Handheld router, or router table? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/woodworking

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Until fairly recently I owned just one router. I bought it, immediately installed it in the table it came with, and it has come out of the router table exactly once since then to cut a couple slots. I have since bought one of those little "trim routers" but I still do the bulk of my routing work in the table.

I'm curious, how do the rest of you prefer to work? Do you mostly use your router handheld or in a table?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I have seen very few episodes of the New Yankee Workshop outside of the shop.

Quite often, while putting a decorative edge on something (a roundover, ogee, something like that) on a board, he'll rest that board on what looks like a mat of that "eco friendly made of old blue jeans" insulation, and rout it with no actual clamps. Or he'll secure it with dogs to the workbench.

I don't like using a standard router out of the table much either; in high school shop class I had one scare the ever loving hell out of me. Standard Porter Cable router, two knob handles in a "normal" base, with a switch up at the top of the motor. Holding this thing above the work because it's a standard base, I held the router with one hand and reached up to turn it on with the other. The starting torque of the motor loosened the one knob I was gripping the tool with and it spun in my hand. I'm still suspicious of the devious little bastards 20 years later.