Thread: How Much Plunge In A Plunge Router?

What brand and model is it?

I suspect this nomenclature's just another sales gimmick... like the modern trend in "over-rating" electric motors.

(eg. a chinese motor may draw 750watts on startup, so it's classed as "1HP" even though in actuality it may only deliver 500watts (2/3HP) when running.)

The 50mm plunge should be just that, though. Deduct the height from tip of collet to work-piece when the router is fully plunged and you have the theoretical "maximum depth of cut" if you can find a router bit that just touches the work-piece when the router is fully raised.

And such router bits are very rare.

I have seen bits with extra long shafts, perhaps double-length, which would allow you to achieve greater cutting depths. But I can't say I've any idea where to buy them.

And for such bits I'd stick to 1/2" shafts... I wouldn't touch an "extra long" 1/4" shaft with someone else's credit card.

It's an el cheapo - Icon Brand - made in China, of course.

There's a photo I just put up on Picasa at: Picasa Web Albums - abrogard - router2011_01_10

I reckon I get 20mm depth of cut - the depth of the tool is it, in fact.

The more I look at it the more it seems to me they'd all be in the same boat.

And a bit of googling around - which threw up a thread on woodwork forums, for instance - seems to suggest that there's no discussion about depth of plunge involved in discussions on choosing a router.

Because they are all essentially limited to the bit size and that seems pretty standard.

Unless you want to deepen a hole you've already cut to the depth of the bit. Which is where I come in. That's what I wanted to do and couldn't and found this "50mm" thing... and wondered..

So that seems a sort of basic limitation on routers...

And I note nearly everyone seems to use them table mounted - on router tables....

I found an ehow set of videos on routers... I'll watch them...

My Bosch GOF1300ACE has about 55mm of useful plunge. Routers like the Festool OF2200 have 80mm. To get the maximum depth of plunge you need a bit like the one shown, it is a 50mm long 12.7mm bit.

Abrogard

There is a gadget on your router, round and has screws sticking up out of it. It is a stopper for the depth, are you adjusting this for maximum depth as it rotates, just a thought.

Regards Mike

Thanks guys. Now I know what to look for: a long bit, simple as that, eh?

And yes, Micky, I have it set for max depth. It just clears the top of the bit. I won't bother photographing it but the springs are fully compressed and the machine is as far down as it'll go.

It has 50mm. They're not lying. The problem is the bit. To use that 50mm I need a bit that reaches down to the job before we start compression, plunging.

Everyone would be the same, maybe?

Or maybe they make machines that have the chuck ( do you call it a 'collet' in these machines?) much lower down than mine? Down low enough to get a 'standard' bit of about 20mm just touching the wood.

In such a machine you'd get your full plunge available with a standard bit.

I need a non standard bit.

That'd be a feature to watch out for when buying machines, if such a feature does exist, wouldn't it?

A few times on the web I've bumped into the contention that you can do 'virtually anything' with a router, that they're the most useful tool in the shop.

But I need educating on it. I can't see it. I know they make mortise and tenons, for instance. I can see how they get the tenon square edged but how to get a square edged mortise? Finish with a chisel? Seems a bit counter productive.

And the plunging - well the answer is long bits but I didn't see any in Bunnings, Mitre 10, BBS or Stratco and didn't realise they existed - without such bits I can't get down more than 20mm. And all I wanted to do was hollow out a bit of wood to make a wooden railway truck for my youngest boy. Couldn't do it, not to the depth I wanted (maybe 25mm).

Seem to be pretty big on edging, I can see that. No use to me at all. Maybe some time in the future.

Anyway, that's all me just waffling on, obscuring the issue, demonstrating my ignorance and neophyte woodworker status...

The question has been answered and it was a bit of a silly question I'm afraid, a bit obvious: you need longer bits, my boy, longer bits.....

Thanks to every one for their help and participation..

Let me be the first to caution you about running a long bit in a cheap router. If you have balance or vibration problems, turn it off - fast. You would not credit how fast these things are going until one gets loose in the same confined space with you.

Yes, I take your point. I find routers to be a bit ferocious as it is. I also have a cheap (GMC - remember them?) drill press and it demonstrates the balance or vibration problems you mention - one can see the bit turning out of centre and making a ghostly blur all around where it should be.

I don't see any such thing on the router which has a much shorter throw, but it may well be there. I'll be very nervous about putting a long bit in it. I would want a thicker bit but I don't think my router allows for that.

I will chance a bit maybe as long as 30mm if I can find such a thing and see how it goes.

A router table is probably a must, too, I'm beginning to think.

Horribly dangerous looking thing that bit sticking up there but probably safer than the hand held router, really. Because the hand held router is often right there at eye level the way I use it at least. Whereas the table would be down there (at groin level ). And the bit nearly always masked by the job.

But then I just had another thought: the table would easily allow you to push the bit too much because the only resistance you can feel is in the wood. Pulling the router itself by hand I'm - I'd think - much more sensitive to the strains I'm putting on the machine.

A long bit sticking up out of a router table might invite excess force causing it to snap off and seriously damage or kill me.

What a shocking thought. I wonder what the incidence of router related injuries is, in fact? Perhaps I'd better take a step back and find a good set of wood chisels and router planes..... all of which cost more than modern machine, don't they? Make more of a craftsman of me, though. And make the workshop and the sounds of work much more pleasant.

I often reflect on the changes in the sounds of work since I was a boy. Then I heard the sounds of men working all around me and it was the sound of muscle brought to play and it had to be brought to play with rythm, delicacy, judicious application of force - else you couldn't keep it up all day - and we all could judge how a man worked simply by listening to his hammering, sawing, chiselling - even how his offcuts landed or were thrown.


We were listening to each other, connected this way somehow. And the noise of such work didn't obscure the noise of the natural world, we could hear the birds still, hear a dog some distance away, a rooster crowing... People and animals, the natural world. Even a cart horse clip clopping on his rounds - very few of them left in my time but a select few still surviving...

What we heard was poetry that spoke of muscular effort produced and employed with grace, precision, delicacy, artistry... the crisp hit on a chisel that precisely took out the required chip with no wasted effort, the easy, steady last stroke on a saw that took off the offcut cleanly with no breaking of the wood....

Everything we heard spoke to us of people doing things and told us something of how they were doing them and therefore something of what kind of person they were, or even how well they felt....

And now? Insensitive machines, electric motors senselessly spinning at the same speed regardless of the task, as ready to cut through flesh as wood or steel. Now we hear the scream of the router. The shriek of the circular saw, the crushing angry roar of the mulcher, the angry noise of the grinder....

the low slow rumble of my drill press is almost human compared to them.......

There's still remnants of the old in there. We can still hear a poor worker or an angry man jabbing fiercely with his tools, jamming the machine into the job, perhaps nearly stalling it... but it's merely a ghost of what was...

The people, the humanity, is gone and all that's left is the machine...


Bit off subject, eh? Sorry guys... the mind wanders....

Hi abrogard have a look at this gives u extra plunge capabilities. only use it in a router with adjustable speed control.
Router Collet Extension : CARBA-TEC

Thanks for that. It'd be good except a quick look seems to indicate I need a 1/2" collet to accept 1/2" bits. My tiny home workshop type thing seems to be about 1/4", maybe 5mm or so.

Maybe I can find one to fit now I know they exist...