Which Compact Router Should You Buy? – Toolsday Woodworking Tool Reviews

on today's tools day we're going to talk about 
compact routers they go by a couple names   pollen routers trim routers laminate routers and 
it may not seem like it but there are different   classes of them different use cases for them 
now there's two things i feel like i always   have to say at the beginning of these videos 
number one this is sponsored by me and me alone   i'm a thousand dollars into small routers here 
so that we can keep this opinion unbiased and   uninfluenced by any company in addition these are 
the routers i chose there's probably more brands   and i'm sorry i didn't test your uh high-end 
italian router you got in the early 90s but   before you get your bloomers in a bunch these 
are the ones i chose because i think that   they're some of the most popular ones with that 
are most readily accessible one thing to note   as well is the milwaukee and the ryobi they 
did not have corded compact routers available   of course have a battery-powered makita because 
i've already owned that one but a lot of these   other routers do come with battery options they 
would be just the same as you see in this test   except for maybe a little bit less powerful 
with the batteries before we get into this   you need to think about what are you going to 
use a trim router for is this your first router   if that's the case you're going to want to think 
about accessories like a plunge base or an edge   guide some of them come with cheap edge guides and 
a lot of brands have upgradable versions that you   can get that are much more accurate and reliable 
does it accept guide bushing then if you're   planning on using a dedicated router for doing 
edge profiles like do you want to just keep an   eighth inch roundover bit in it then maybe you're 
gonna want a cordless router i know i really enjoy   my cordless router for that reason i just keep an 
edge profile bit in it all the time when i need   to break some edges i can just whip it out and 
go gentlemen ladies are you on the go are you on   a job site are you going to be using it in a spot 
but you like to use corded because you maybe want   the option for more power if you're going to do 
the occasional groove or dado with your router   so we're going to break these into different 
categories we're going to talk about different   features we obviously can't compare a cordless 
milwaukee router to a corded dewalt router   because they're just not going to carry the same 
power however we can compare the accessories the   adjustability the repeatability the accuracy so 
we've devised a series of tests that we're going   to do and i'm going to come up with some of my own 
thoughts for which router i would buy in each of   those scenarios i talked about so let's get into 
the test we're going to start by checking the   adjustability of a router which i think is the 
most important part so for this first test we're   testing a few things we're doing accuracy and 
repeatability and the way we're going to do that   is i've marked with my marking gauge i've marked 
a line that is an eighth inch all the way around   the board i'm going to change the bit set it to 
that line an eighth we're going to make a pass   holding it down here and then we're going to make 
a pass holding it with our hand on top and our   hand on the side what that's going to simulate 
is any pressure if you're like kind of in a   weird spot and you had to you know go against 
the wall or anything it's going to test how   well that depth adjustment holds up with just a 
little bit of pressure on the top and you know   a good router shouldn't move regardless how you 
hold it or what pressure you put on it it should   keep the exact same depth so then we'll use a 
pair of calipers measure the depth we'll see   if there's a difference this also gives an 
opportunity to check out the led light and   the on and off switch which we'll be able 
to check out a bunch of times during these tests all right we finished that test ran it twice to 
make sure that we were getting accurate results   the short answer is everything here from the bosch 
over to the dewalt was rock solid didn't move   at all everything porter cable milwaukee 
and ryobi moved porter cable the least   porter cable it's like it feels solid but 
it just moves just a little bit milwaukee   was the most disappointing one because i had 
high hopes for that it looks very nicely built   comes with great accessories but it's got .04 
of play in the mechanism and you can adjust it   when it's closed which a router shouldn't do that 
and then the ryobi we're not even going to let it   continue the test because it can't hold the bit 
the bit dropped over an eighth of an inch on one   pass and continued to keep being all wonky and 
it scared me uh so we're going to take them out   of circulation plus this is the dumbest thing i've 
ever seen to take the base off you got to undo the   clamp so you got your clamp off then you press 
down the macro adjustment then it hangs on the   switch so you got to reach your other hand around 
push the button in and catch the router before it   falls on the ground absolute garbage it just isn't 
worth even pursuing even though it's by far the   cheapest on here although it doesn't come with the 
batteries for the milwaukee fanboys i'm sorry man   that thing is garbage but let's talk about some of 
the other ones dewalt i knew i've used this one a   bunch i knew that was going to be saw the thing is 
just rock solid makita the worst out of the bunch   as far as adjustment goes accuracy wise it was 
dead on you know you got the same passes whether   i was pushing down on the top or holding it from 
the side ridgid did well although the adjustment   on ridgid is pretty terrible when you go if you're 
like have your hand down here and you're trying to   do it you can see this rotates down and it's you 
got to like rotate it back up also when this is   loose it's like really wobbly and although it does 
have a dial which is nice it's just not great but   it got the job done bosch rock solid and i think 
they designed it to be very very rock solid with   this three-way switch it has a lock position which 
is like hey i'm ready to go and cut something   it has a i'm ready to adjust it position so that's 
then you just do it with this dial the dial is   rather stiff it could probably do with a little 
grease but it's i think stiffness gives you you   know reliability it makes it very very slow which 
is what you want you know you can macro adjust it   from this position and get it kind of close 
and then you switch it to the adjust position   and do this and then when you're ready 
to go you lock it down if i had to pick   my absolute favorite it was the dewalt for the 
adjustability all of course all of these were   accurate but as far as like mechanisms go the 
twist on the dewalt the way that it works is   you can go really fast and it moves pretty quickly 
or you can just barely turn it and it moves slowly   and so i love that macro micro feature without 
having an extra button extra switch like the   ridgid does or the porta cable or the milwaukee 
and the ryobi we're going to talk about switches   and lights and accessories at the end because 
i feel like those are add-ons they wouldn't   affect my buying decision a lot because you know 
most important thing is power and accuracy right   so we're going to move on to the use it and abuse 
it test we're going to route a bunch of grooves   we're going to do some round overs and basically 
i'm going to do 15 minutes of continuous usage   which with each router and then rate them based 
on a bunch of different rating factors i have here   and we're going to talk about those after the test 
and i'll give you my final assessment at the end   as far as you know whether you should get 
battery or corded as well as which one i   would recommend so let's move on to the use 
and abuse it test and uh beat these guys up one of the things that's great about 
doing these tools days and using   tools side by side is you learn some things that 
you didn't know you really liked about a tool   and some things that you may have tolerated in 
the past that really are just kind of dumb i've   changed the order of these they are now ordered 
in price so cheapest to most expensive let me just   say some things about what you should look for in 
any brand of router that i've sort of identified   as the most important parts accessories when it's 
locked together does it move i'm going to address   the milwaukee here in one second to call it check 
out these collets in the the type of collet is so   indicative of which ones were good and which ones 
were bad the er collets with the four sides those   routers all performed better than the cheaper 
routers and the ryobi's even though it looks   like an er call it's like stamped sheet metal we 
threw out the ryobi from the test because i wasn't   willing to risk having a bit come loose and shoot 
in my face so the fact that it couldn't hold a bit   was a deal breaker for me as well as the switch 
anything that has a switch like this is a bad idea   because if you ever put like a finger up there 
to brace it or you put a second hand on there to   steady it it's going to turn off your router which 
is super annoying accuracy type of call it and   then you want to think about the power now one of 
the things that i really had a misconception about   was the power of battery-operated routers both of 
these battery-powered routers actually were much   much stronger than i thought to the point that it 
made me do a bunch of googling and figure out that   they actually aren't really much less power in 
fact in the case of makita if you use the five amp   hour batteries they say it's more powerful 
than their corded version if you're gonna   get a router and you don't use a compact router 
as your main router the one you use all the time   i'd get battery powered and all of these do come 
in battery powered i believe i didn't see a porter   cable but that doesn't matter that one's terrible 
anyways if it's your main router you use all time   you've got a plunger base for it and you're you 
know routing all your grooves and dados with it   then maybe you want to get corded so you don't 
have to worry about running out of battery power   but other than that i mean they're great these 
are the same batteries we started the test with   and we did about 15 minutes of usage for each 
route and that's like actual routing time not   we played with it for 15 minutes like we spent 
a ton of time routing grooves and flush trimming   and we did everything like harder faster and like 
deeper than we would normally like we were doing   3 8 inch grooves and normally i'd probably only 
do maybe a quarter inch at most and you know we   were flush trimming with the whole bit buried in 
the wood which i would never do so it was a great   test we really used and abused these so let's talk 
about the milwaukee i said that was trash earlier   i take that back although with some caveats i 
looked it up and there are a bunch of reviews of   people saying they have that same problem and it 
is a bad design the way that this adjustment knob   is however you can crank down on this nut here 
with an allen key and then you can lock it but   it makes it pretty tough to adjust however it does 
fix the problem but because i know that i would   never fully trust it it would always worry me to 
use it especially on like delicate cuts that you   had to get right you know maybe you're real 
far down on a project and you're routing out   a groove for a door a drawer or something and 
you don't want to mess up your whole project   it would make me worried however if you're already 
on the milwaukee platform this is a great option   everything else about it was fantastic it comes 
with some great accessories like a dust guard i'm   sorry dust collection as well as this extra large 
base plate that is got a step in it that will   accept the bosch template guide bushings which are 
great tools for inlay or tracing patterns let's go   through maybe a just a quick overview of each one 
and then i'll give you my final recommendation of   what i would get porter cable it's like it wants 
to be a good router but it's got the good you know   twist adjustment but it failed the accuracy test 
and i kind of verified that that was the case and   it wasn't something i did and it's true it moves i 
couldn't figure out why but everything else about   it just feels cheap it's like molded plastic and 
you can just feel that everything is just kind of   garbage on it especially you know it's got one of 
those cheap collets with just one split down the   end of it so it's just not a good option because 
it doesn't have any benefits to it above anything   else the ridgid is another one it feels like 
playskool is my first router like everything's   kind of chintzy all the parts you know move 
they're really hard to adjust this is so annoying   when you go to lock this down and it presses down 
and you gotta like flip it back up and lock it   down the macro adjust on it's kind of real cheap 
and tough to really mess around with too much so   i was not impressed with that one and it's got 
that switch i hate then the makita like i said   makita fanboy here the adjustment on it it just 
makes it a non-starter for me i've had this router   a long time and i didn't know how bad it was until 
i got to compare it to other things it'd be super   powerful but what the only thing i would use this 
for because i do love the freedom of a battery is   i just throw a round over bit leave it set perfect 
and just always you know use it just for doing   eighth inch roundovers my favorite routers were 
these two the bosch colt and the dewalt now as   far as pricing goes the bosch is a lot cheaper and 
not a bad bet it's actually i'd say the greatest   value in here it's also what i would consider 
maybe the second best in here but not it's not   second best by a lot like it's really good it's 
very hefty noticeably more powerful than anything   else except the dewalt which i'd say they're 
about the same they're both 1.25 horsepower has a   phenomenal collet the bits are very easy to change 
one cool thing that also has a little bit of an   annoying factor to it is the lights are always on 
i love that when you're trying to set up cuts and   get your bit right in the right place it is cool 
when it is lit underneath and not just when it's   running the only a slightly annoying thing is when 
you go to change a bit they sort of shine in your   eyes and they're very very bright which is great 
for when you're working but maybe not the best   when you're you're changing a bit the adjustment 
on it is the only thing that is not as good as the   dewalt it is good but it's kind of it's small it's 
only in one place you got to kind of like reach   around and it's very stiff which i imagine is very 
good for accuracy but not great when you're like   trying to set up a cut and and move it around but 
other than that phenomenal i don't personally use   variable speed on my compact routers very often 
so i didn't really play around much with those   the point of variable speed is when you have a you 
know really wide router bit you slow it down but   i would never use a really wide router bit in a 
compact router i would go with a bigger router   because it's just it's not safe it's going to burn 
out your motor and you know anything over a half   inch wide i wouldn't use it a compact router now 
my favorite also the most expensive is the dewalt   it's got really bright lights on it the bits are 
very easy to change i love the adjustment it was   my favorite one you can sort of macro adjust it 
and turn it really fast or really micro adjust   you can just turn it just a little bit one of the 
coolest things about it is this base i love to   put my fingers on the side here the bosch has two 
great finger holes but the rest of them are just   round and you're doing something like butterfly 
keys it makes a huge difference in the ability to   really fine tune that thing and be able to 
move it around very slightly it's also great   when you're working on edges because you can 
put your fingers right here and stabilize it   but one of the coolest things about it it's the 
only router in all of these that you can flip   the base 180 degrees which is amazing 
because normally i guess i would just   take the screws out and move this base around 
depending on what side of a board i was trying   to work on but you don't have to with the dewalt 
and that i think is really really cool all in all   the ridgid the porter cable the ryobi those are 
non-starters for me makita it was solid once it   was locked down but that adjustment knob just it 
makes it i won't buy another one the milwaukee   great battery powered option it does have 
the potential to get loose but you know it   seems like a lot of people do really love 
it based on the reviews i read and that   thing that happened to me doesn't happen all the 
time but when it comes to which one i would choose   if you are on a budget you're trying to save 
money get the bosch cult if you want to just get   the best out there the dewalt phenomenal choice 
especially because these are the two with the most   accessories one of the problems with the milwaukee 
you can only buy the plunge base as a kit that's   the only one i found it didn't have a lot of other 
accessories but bosch and dewalt their accessories   abound and they are great i i used to have the 
bosch colt the model before this one and i had   all you know the really nice edge guide with the 
fine micro adjust it has a wonderful plunge base   and i've used the dewalt before same thing it's 
got great accessories they're very high quality   and i really can recommend it like i said guys 
i paid for all these routers there is no outside   influence none of this is sponsored and this is my 
opinion in my opinion alone if you disagree with   me i'd love to hear about it down in the comments 
and it would really help out the channel allow me   to do a lot more of these videos if you head over 
to the cat's moses store and check out all the   great tools we have over there guys thanks for 
watching stay safe in the shop have a wonderful you

See also  Marc Made Her Cry

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