Harbor Fright Trim router

[TonyinNYC]

Even easier: put a bit into the collet. Try to wiggle the collet by pushing the bit. If you can do it by hand, you can bet it will wiggle, i.e. have runout, when you cut a board. I checked a whole bunch of dremels one day, at Home Depot, and they all had severe runout. That's why I switched to a router or cutting rosette channels. My cheapo Ryobi laminate trimmer has no runout that I can see.

[ken cierp]

Ya lost me on that one Tony?? Seems like you are checking for bearing play? Which is also bad news. I am talking about run-out from the spindle center-line, the bit has to be tight and checked against a reference to see mis-alignment. It seem to me that the Harbor Freight units have defective collet receivers which throws the bit off center or the spindle is bent?

[TonyinNYC]

You are not lost Ken. I am. I was referring to spindle play as runout. I had no idea you were talking about another area where the router could be messed up. What kind of world do we live in where cheap, imported goods can not be trusted to work properly?? Back in my day, we didn't even have routers. We nibbled our binding channels with our teeth.

[Dave Bagwill]

Tony, I know that's a true story. So why don't we forget all about binding and bracing and all that crap and invent something like - well, take a big hunka wood, put a neck on it, maybe some sort of gizmo could be affixed to the body that would not be a microphone but would pick up the sound of the strings somehow - and make it so, I don't know, it could be plugged in or something to something that makes the sound bigger? Just a thought, probly stoopid...


I seriously wonder if you and I are really an asset to the Forum or not..:-)

[peter havriluk]

Ken, a few minutes ago I put the bit I'll be using to cut binding channels in my NIB router and checked the bit against an inked line and I could not see any runout. I tried a cut with the bit and the 1/4" bit left a 1/4" channel in a piece of wood. I didn't rig up the router guides that would have kept the channel straight(er), so my freehand channel could well allow for some side-to-side shivering as the router made its cut. It also didn't appear to shiver and shake so's I noticed, too. I couldn't feel any side-to-side looseness in the bearings that would cause runout.

So, my guess is that I have one, that out of the box, is an acceptable one. For how long, who knows. Seeing as I bought it a couple of years ago when the newer iteration of that tool entered the market, perhaps the manufacturers hadn't yet started their Oriental practice of once something is offered for sale, find ways to cut corners in its construction.

[peter havriluk]

unnecessary comment...deleted.

Thanks, folks.

[peter havriluk]

Today the router, me, and workshop buddy were all together at the same place, and we took the time to try to observe the runout in my shiny new HF trim router. Exactly what Ken said. Junk.