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Best router for the buck?

#22
The Porter Cable 690 is like the Ford F-150 of routers. When I had my cabinet shop, I had about a dozen set up for different uses. The only repairs I had to do on them was when one of my guys would drop one. I still see the 690 fixed base/plunge base combo in store regularly.
 
#26
Oh how this thread makes me jealous.
I reeeeeealy need a couple good routers.

I can't remember what the model was but I worked in a shop where we had a couple routers that where itsy bitsy small with a 4" or so square fixed base, I wanna say they where either porter cable or bosch but oh how I miss those as they were the **** for small jobs.

My last router was an old craftsmen that a bearing went on during use and that was kinda not fun lol.
I also had a black & decker that was just frightening all around and ended up on fire when it died.
That being said it would be nice to have something that's not a piece of junk and even though I'm not in the market at the moment this thread helps.

Thanks ya'll!
 
#29
When I was working for a kinda big local woodshop which had contracts with The GAP and other similar co.'s making this and that out of all sorts of hard compounds including walnut, we used old porter-cable. I was told by a feller who'd been there since the seventies that he hadn't seen a new router in there since they expanded in the early eighties.
 
#32
I have two PC 690s. One of them I have owned for over 15 years. The other one about 10. Had to replace the cord on the old one and I think the brushes once. Sometimes it would be nice to have more HP but all the basses I have built I have built with a PC 690 (plunge and fixed).
 
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#37
Doner Designs said:
I have a Ryobi router and several other Ryobi tools. Never found them wanting, but I only do light woodworking.
Click to expand...

You would find it wanting really fast if you ever needed to run a 1/2" x 2 1/2" flush trim bit on a router table, when the Ryobi only has a 1/4" collet. That is the only real problem with some of the cheaper routers like Skill, Ryobi and Black and Decker. A Porter Cable doesn't cost that much more and the option for a 1/2" collet is well worst the extra scratch.
 
#38
Hopkins said:
You would find it wanting really fast if you ever needed to run a 1/2" x 2 1/2" flush trim bit on a router table, when the Ryobi only has a 1/4" collet. That is the only real problem with some of the cheaper routers like Skill, Ryobi and Black and Decker. A Porter Cable doesn't cost that much more and the option for a 1/2" collet is well worst the extra scratch.
Click to expand...

Good to know. If/when I ever tackle making a body from a blank I might need to upgrade. For pickup and control cavity routing the one I have seems to work fine but I generally try to buy bodies pre-routed to my spec. Getting lazy in my old age.
 
#39
Hopkins said:
You would find it wanting really fast if you ever needed to run a 1/2" x 2 1/2" flush trim bit on a router table, when the Ryobi only has a 1/4" collet. That is the only real problem with some of the cheaper routers like Skill, Ryobi and Black and Decker. A Porter Cable doesn't cost that much more and the option for a 1/2" collet is well worst the extra scratch.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they are fixed speed and have only the 1/4" collet. But the PC690 is actually quite a lot more than the Ryobi. And for routing pickup cavities and control cavities, they are adequate. The collet really doesn't become a problem until you want to do a roundover, which I find I like less and less anyway.
 

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