Thread: A quick question

Personally,I remove the springs from my router

I never have. But mine has been in amd out many times. Guess it is a case of will yiu leave it in the table most of the time.

Try it both ways and report back to is 😉

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

The manual for my Triton router says to remove the springs for table mounting.

I think it depends on the make of your router. I use a Makita and I'm pretty sure that the recommendation is to not remove the springs, but I could be corrected on this. Triton owners all seem to remove the springs. Don't know about other makes.

The springs are obviously used to ensure a positive lift when plunge routing and the operator wants to end a plunge cut, so the springs counter the weight of the entire router except the base and plunge tubes. Typically they are rated at around 1.5 to 2 times the plunge mass of the router, if the router (except base and plunge tubes) weighs 3kg, the springs will exert a force of 4.5kg to 6kg between the motor and base to esnure a positive lift when the motor is allowed to rise from a plunged position.

The same router inverted in a table with the springs intact, still has the 3kg weight, but the 4.5 to 6kg spring force is now working with gravity instead of against it. The operator has to find a way to exert 7.5 to 9kg of force to raise the motor and set it to height. Without the springs, the force required is only 3kg.

Whether you remove the springs or not depends on a number of issues, including difficulty of access to the springs, and how you intend to go about changing bits. For instance if you intend having a drop in router insert, it is viable to lift the router and insert out of the table and lay them on the table surface to change bits. This improves access to all parts of the router and you can work efficiently like this, particularly if the springs are difficult to access and the router will get mixed use in the table and away from the table. On the other hand if the table has a screw located insert, it would be a pain to have to release and replace the screws every setup change.

Triton recognised the issue and designed their units with a single very easily removed spring, but then used plastic components in the height adjust mechanism for the earlier models. Using a plastic mech Triton under a table with the spring installed is a very short road to finding spare parts as the plastic components cannot manage many moves with the combined heavy weight of the unit plus the spring forces.

I have older Makitas (3600BR) which have a large winder knob on a 10mm x 1mmm pitch stud which does quite a good job of positively setting bit height when inverted, with or without the springs installed. The compromise is that for the 50mm adjustment range of the mechanism, there are 50 turns of the knob, or more likely 100 half turns, so a major transition like that can be rather tedious.

Personally, I feel that it up to the operator and how the want to work with the machines the have that should determine whether or not to pull the springs, with the obvious proviso that if the manufacturer recommends removing them, you should, as failure to do so may count as negligence if you strip gears because you ignored their warning. After all, they generally know the design compromises of their product before the customers find it.

I use a Hitachi in my table and a wood vice in reverse as a lifter.

Have never seen the need to remove the springs, that being said, I use the machine and when finished lower the router so that the springs are decompressed. Even the handheld, also Hitachi, when finished the springs are not left compressed.

My triton router mounted in the table has had the spring removed. Has been in the table for years.