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I received this small router as a birthday present. I haven’t had the chance to play a lot with still but I tried it out and here are my first thoughts.

The unit is everything what it claims to be. A powerful router in a small package. It’s very comfortable in the hand. I was also very surprise by it’s quietness, of course, it a motor spinning at 35,000 RPMs so it is not silent but I was pleasantly surprised as I was expecting it to be louder. The 10 feet cord is great and so is the precise bit depth adjustment.

There are two things that I am disappointed in. One, you need to purchase a separate base for the router to accept bushings. I would include such a sub-base by default. Second, is the included 17mm wrench for but changing router bits. It’s not fitting right on the collet… I had to use another wrench instead of the included one. Not a big thing but if it’s included, it should fit just right in my opinion.

I recently discovered a woodworking store in the Ottawa area, BusyBee Tools. They offer a multitude of tools and have an impressive show floor wher you see and “play” with the tools themselves before buying. Upon my second visit there where I introduced a friend to that store, I came back home with a dovetail jig. This jig (shown on the right) can produce half-blind dovetail or through finger joints. A half-blind dovetail is a joint where you can only see the dovetail from the side and not the front.

The jig comes with 1/2″ “comb” but extra comb of different finger width.

At the time of writing this, I haven’t tested it yet but I plan on building a few boxes to help organize my work area as a starting point. You can view the dovetail jig on Busy Bee’s website.

I mounted the jig on my router table top and secured it with two bolt accompanied by butterfly nuts for easy removal.

And here’s my 1st attempt at making a dovetail joint. I think it’s a success!

Yes, some tools are certainly better looking than others. And I’ve recently found some that have a great look. Since I’ve started to dive a little more into woodworking I’ve recently gotten to know more and more brand names offering tools that we typically don’t see at your local Rona or Canadian Tire. One of those companies is Hitachi. I haven’t tried those but from what I’ve on a few forums is that Hitachi is a top-of-the-line brand and their latest tools certainly have a look that makes them standout of the regular crowd.

One of thier latest offering is a compound miter saw with digital readout of the bevel and miter angles. I’m sure you can appreciate that!

Although I did have (and still do) a router, I didn’t have a router table. I had been looking to buy one for while now and I was also toying with the idea of building my own. Well that what I did, with some help from Lee Valley Tools. While doing my regular perusing of the catalog, I saw a table insert specifically made to make your own router table. The insert, is a phenolic plastic disc of 9″ in diameter by 1/4″ thick. The kit comes with the tools to fix the base plate to your your base and one of the major advantages is that you drill the holes yourself so your base plate doesn’t look like Swiss cheese.

The kit also contains instructions on how to make the table top for the router table. Very easy to do and it works like a charm! The only other items you need to have in order to create your table is a 3/16″ drill bit, a 1/2″ drill bit (for wood) and a 1/2″ straight router bit. The countersink bit to drill the base plate is included with the kit. The instructions are accurate and easy to follow.

For my own table I bought a 1/2″ MDF 24″x48″ sheet but they recommend (and so do I) a thicker one. I resawed the MDF sheet to 24×36 which gives me a nice surface to work on. I might go buy another sheet of 1/2″ (the closest hardware store seems to only carry that thickness…) and glue them together to have a stiffer, thicker table top. I reused the stand I had built for my miter saw so that that stand can now serve with two tools. I just removed the miter saw for router use and just make the router bit is below the surface before putting back the miter saw back on it when I need it. Space saving and effective!

More detailed infor about the Veritas Base plate/Table insert on their website.

I’ve been wanting to buy a miter saw for a while now. So on Sunday, I went to my local Rona store to buy the model I’ve been looking at which was the store brand. So I go there, and of course, the item is out of stock. The clerk told me that the stores from the area are also out. On my way I think about tha stores on the Ontario side so I call them and I’m told they have some in stock. Great I tell myself. So I drive the 30 minutes drive over to the store and of course, they had made a mistake, no one has that model in stock and they’ll arrive in mid-June, like I’m gonna wait.

So, after listening to the clerk’s salespitch, I decided to bring home a Bosch 3915 miter-saw. 10 inch blade, sliding, 13 amps motor, 4700 rpms. I was told by a friend over at Motorcycle-Journal.com that one of the quality signs is a smooth start of the blade. A harsh noise is not a good thing and will cause premature engine failure. I believe him, his family owns a home building business in the States, Art Buhs Construction. Thanks for the advice Clint.

I decided to bring it home as I have 90 days to use it and return it for a refund if I don’t like it. So far, I doubt I’ll return it. It’s more expensive than the model I was about to pick up at first but it’ll last me a life time.

So far, I’m very pleased. The factory adjustment were dead on, it’s a breeze to use, not too noisy, and that sliding motion it’s pure heaven. I made a little portable bench for it to I can carry it outside. I’ll finish a few projects and might post them here.

Edit: Official Specifications

J’avais acheté peu après Noël, un marteau pneumatique (nail gun en bon français) de marque Coleman PowerMate. Ce dernier, acceptais des clous de calibre 18 d’une longeur de 5/8 de pouces à 1 pouce et 1/4 mais il acceptait aussi des agrafes de 3/4 de pouces à 1 pouces et 1/4. Je suis aller le reporter au magasin car, de par sa nature 2 en 1, la plaque de métal qui vient frapper les clous et les agrafes est assez large puisqu’elle doit … frapper des agrafes. Cependant, lorsque c’est un clou, ça laisse une marque dans le bois à côté de la tête du clou. Bon, c’est certain que ça se camoufle mais pour des travaux de finition moins de marque, c’est préférable. Je suis donc aller au magasin favoris de tout amateur d’outils qui se respecte Princess Auto, qui offre des outils de tout genre (quoi que peu d’outils électriques mais beaucoup d’outils manuelles, pneumatiques et plein d’autres choses). La particularité de Princess Auto c’est des outils fiables, robustes et pas cher. Difficile à croire hein? C’est aussi un des magasins d’où tu repars avec une facture plus grosse que tu voulais malgré toutes les bonnes intentions de contrôle que tu peux avoir jusqu’à ce que tu passes la porte. Je me suis donc rendu à avec la ferme intention d’acheter une cloueuse pneumatique (marteau pneumatique) de calibre 18, acceptant des clous de 5/8 à 2 pouces. Le modèle était à $40. En arrivant sur place, à ma grande surprise, je constate que la cloueuse est réduite à $25. Donc selon la théorie de mon père, je sauve $15 que je réinvesti dans la cloueuse qui me revient donc à $10 (c’est logique non? ). En farfouillant un peu plus, je vois un coffret de 4 outils électriques: perceuse, scie sauteuse, ponceuse de finition et lampe de poche avec 2 batteries de 18 volts et un chargeur pour la somme de $33. Avec mes travaux récents sur mon cellier, ma perceuse sans fil manquait toujours de batterie. Une seconde batterie pour cette perceuse coùte environ $40. Donc, toujours selon mon père, j’épargne un autre $7 que je réinvestit pour une économie de $14 mais en plus j’ai une seconde perceuse sans fil, une scie sauteuse, une ponceuse et une lampe de poche! C’est tu pas merveilleux