Thread: Which plunge router?

The maktec will be fine for what you want and more, go for it.

SB

PM sent. Become acquainted with the two primary types of routers, plunge and non-plunge; each is very different from the other. Most routers are going to be dusty and dust travels throughout a house; there are exceptions but you won't find them at the Maktec end. So when you start her up make sure the dust won't matter.

Any half decent plunge router with enough power will be fine...but if you are chopping speaker rebates you need power and you need a half inch machine.

Most of my speaker box work has been done with a hitachi TR12, with a 1/2 inch bit, it has enough power to cut thru 15mm ply in one moderately paced cut...

The 1/4 inch machine you are looking at simply wont have the balls, to remove the amount of material you need.

And with heavy cuts weight is a definite advantage.

I have a bigger machine, the big porter cable a 3+ horsepower machine, but I have tended to keep that for road case work when I am cutting thru ply and aluminium extrusion in one hit.

I have a couple of 1/4 inch machines, but they mostly get used for edge rounding and small moulding

And as mentioned doing this sort of work you will make plenty of dust and chips.

I have used machine mounted dust ports and they work marginally well, but if you are planning to do a lot of speaker box or flat panel work a VAC box is a great thing....I use my dustextractor to power a simple box...the vac box provides both suction to anchor the work piece and suck the waste thru the work and away.

As for jigs....you do not need anything fancy...the ability to hold a template guide..most 1/2 inch routers will take a template guide and will probaly come with one.

and a simple standard circle guide will do any circle work you may need.

The standard guide that came with my TR12 is all I have ever needed...I simply remove the fence components and have a sloted hole filed in the bridge piece that hooks onto a centre screw.

If I am doing speakers in onsies and twosies, I simply work off a centre screw.

Any sort of volume & I have in the past made templates and run a template guide.

Now here is a tip for free.

If you are going to rebate a speaker frame, cut the rebate first and then cut the hole out second..and all off a centre screw.

when doing the thru cut.....keep the centre in place with 3 or 4 small webs where you have plunged up to leave the webs behind to keep the centre anchored..then cut them out with a small hand saw or knife

Now when you have your router, you can look at using rebates on the edges of your panel peices, this allows them to self jig and makes for a much stronger joint.

I knew a bloke ( he dies recently) who built an entire concert system ( 8 horn loaded 15 inch bass cabinets and 8 matching horn boxes) doing all the cutting with a router.... not my prefeered method... but is shows the versatility.

cheers


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