Which do you prefer: Handheld router, or router table?
Which do you prefer: Handheld router, or router table?
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?
It took me a good 15 seconds to figure out you weren't talking about a computer networking device. Shows how much I actually do woodworking, haha!
Back in the day, I worked in the hardware department of a Canadian Tire store, and an old dude is looking at the large tools. He flags me over and goes, "Which one of these things'll get me online? My boy says I need a router!" I sent him to the Future Shop on the other side of the mall.
Well obviously I use my network router in the table and I use my switch for handheld work. Sometimes I'll even haul out a hub if the job requires an old school touch.
With all that I'm sure you could build some nice servers, if you ever decide to start hosting!
Totally depends on the task. If you do the same type of things, you're always going to use the same type of tool.
Personally, I tend to get into very different projects. The table router is great whenever the work piece is small enough to lift. I have a second that I use for plunging and on a jig for scarfing, and a trim router that gets used on counters, tables, and bulkheads.
I mounted a router onto a radial arm saw chassis. It works like a router table but you can see the work. It cuts straight grooves and dados with ease, and makes accurate joinery. It can also double as a jointer or planer in a pinch. I can also use it as a pin router or pattern router with a pin that mounts in the table. Due to the extreme versatility I would very much recommend it over a router table, especially in a small shop.
I've seen overarm routers, never really considered rigging my own.
I don’t see this as a topic of preferences, really, because only a minority of tasks can be done equally well on both.
Watching old episodes of the New Yankee Workshop, I find that Norm often uses a router handheld to do a job that I would do in the table, is why I ask.
You can do many jobs with both, but usually one is a clearly better fit for the job. Only for some things is it a true tossup. Maybe for someone really skilled, like Norm, there’s a higher number of jobs that could be done both ways. For myself, I fear the router and plan any use of it really carefully.
Was Norm in the shop when this happened? Or on site somewhere?
Have just one large Dewalt router and don’t have a table. Once I do get a table, though… that baby is never coming off of it.
I have just the one traditional router and switch between using it in the table or handheld. It mostly depends on if I am doing any plunge routing to inset something or templating, then I’ll take it out of the table. Otherwise it’s mostly in the table.
I was looking at a trim router mainly as an excuse to buy a DIY CNC kit, but then it’d be mounted in that mostly.