Routers and Hand Drills - Most Important Woodworking Power Tools

!±8± Routers and Hand Drills - Most Important Woodworking Power Tools

For the woodworking beginner, there are two essential power tools that can make most projects possible. These are a good hand drill and a good router. More than any other two tools, a drill and router are the foundation of a woodworker's tool arsenal because of their versatility.

The Hand Drill
A drill is designed to (obviously) drill into things. A good, reliable hand drill can be used for drilling holes for screws, making decorative holes, and it can even replace biscuit joinery when necessary.

With a drill you can create dowel joinery, which is less sophisticated but certainly just as effective and definitely less expensive.

When it comes to choosing a good hand drill, there are two basic choices to start with - cordless or plug-in. The kind with a plug-in cord is beneficial because you never have to wait for the battery to recharge or deal with weak drilling capabilities when the battery is low.

However, cordless drill are obviously more portable and most come with two battery packs. That way as long as you keep one plugged in at all times, you will not have to do much waiting.

So if you decide on the very popular cordless model, you then have several other choices to make. First, you need to consider the battery power. You can find drills with voltage from 9.6 volts to 24 volts. The higher the voltage the more power and torque you will get as well as longer battery life after each charge.

The disadvantage of higher voltage though, is that the drills are quite heavy and can make it more difficult to use for long periods of time. How the drill feels in your hands may be one of the most important factors in your decision. Regardless of voltage a good hand drill should have a dual speed motor, a reverse motor function, and an adjustable clutch.

The Router
A good router is the other important tool because it can perform so many different functions. For instance, with some practice, a router can help you create decorative edges, make cross-cuts, and cut mortises and create grooves. If you mount the router in a table, your options expand to include making moldings, edge joints, frames, box joints, and even panel doors. The professional quality of a good router will make it well worth the purchase.

There are a few key elements to consider when choosing a good router. First, the power of the motor is important. A 2-horsepower motor will handle most jobs, but a more powerful one will be need for bulk professional work. Another nice feature to have is a plunge feature. This provides versatility within very detailed work. You should also look for a collet-locking button. This will make it possible to adjust the collet with just one wrench rather than several.

So, as you start to create your perfect workshop, the best place to start is with a quality hand drill and router. Once you have those in place and have fully mastered their functions, you will be able to move on to other tools with ease and with expertise.

Routers and Hand Drills - Most Important Woodworking Power Tools

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Precision Woodworking with Router Boss

!±8± Precision Woodworking with Router Boss

For today's carpenter, has a simple router and adaptable in an important tool for profiling, shaping and joining wood. Router Boss is a new machine, planing, which supports both the router and surely the wood and allows, in a creative way, without control provides the tool forced labor. Keep a section in each dimension and precisely cut almost all the municipalities in the book.

Precision Woodworking with Router Boss

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What is a Woodworking Router and What Can it Do For Me

!±8± What is a Woodworking Router and What Can it Do For Me

So what does a router do and how to use a router.

I thought I'd first take a look at the word router and this originates from a verb to rout. Rout is also a noun but this doesn't relate to our woodworking router. The definition of the verb appears to be to rummage or to hollow out or furrow, as with a scoop, gouge, or machine. So perhaps my definition of a woodworking router would be to gouge out or machine out some part of a piece of wood. This could simply be to make a groove or round the edges of a piece of timber.

The first routers were of course hand operated and were similar in appearance to a flat wood plane but having interchangeable narrow blades rather than the large flat blade. These blades would be shaped to make a grove or round the edge of the timber. The electric router was introduced in the first half of the last century but in fact was a very different product for achieving similar results and relied on a spinning cutter and was known as the spindle router. A company called Elu developed some of the first products and I remember having a quality Elu router myself. I believe Elu is now part of the Makita power tool and Makita router range of products.

The first electric routers had a fixed base and subsequent routers called plunging routers were sprung such that the spinning blade would not protrude beyond the based as the weight or pressure was removed. These types of router were moved over the wood area. The alternative method of use is to mount a router to the underside of a router table and then move the wood over the router and maintaining a fixed position for the table router. This is ideal for a workshop environment and lends itself to additional safety features.

The handheld plunging routers can be used (should be used) with a variety of controls. The base of the router can be fitted with a sidebar device to ensure that the cutting blade remains a constant distance from the edge of the wood you are routing. For example you may wish to cut a groove 4 mm deep and 3 mm from the edge of your piece of wood. The depth can be set to the maximum 4 mm and the sidebar guide will ensure that the groove is not made more than 3mm from the edge of the wood. You could achieve the same results by clamping a straight edge over the surface of the wood to be machined and keep the electric router pressed firmly against the straight edge.

Router cutters or router bits come in many different shapes. The different shapes allow you to use your router to cut square, vee and rounded grooves. There are more router bits to enable round, angular and decorative edge finishing. An edge finishing router bit has a spinning guide at the base of the cutter that prevents the blade cutting deeper into the timber. Generally speaking buying router bits can be a little of a lottery because you want the best bits but don't want to spend a fortune. Unless you need a large selection of router bits for professional work I'd suggest buying a set of router bits with most of the shapes you could ever envisage using. You'll probably also require 1 or 2 straight cutting bits and you may wish to pay a little more money to get the best you can afford if you are to use these bits frequently. For example you may wish to have a 3-4 mm straight cutting blade for groves and rebating edges of your chosen timber. A larger 8-10mm is always useful for taking a little timber off a wider area. Cheaper blades will soon lose their cutting edge and could scorch or burn the timer if you are not careful.

You can choose a router from a variety of manufactures notably Makita, Bosch, Dewalt, Festool, Milwaukee and Porter-Cable. A router is still very much a corded power tool and is often required for long periods of use so there hardly any cordless routers. The Ryobi ZRP600 Trim Router is an 18v cordless device but very much intended for lighter trim work. Many of the manufacturers also supply factory reconditioned routers and router combo kits.

Once you've mastered the use of a router you'll be amazed how many tasks can be improved by using a router.

What is a Woodworking Router and What Can it Do For Me

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