This is an interesting idea Jeff, I'm sure some of the responses will be very educational. My first routing work was actually done free hand in metal with a die grinder. This was cutting steel door jambs for lock hardware. I worked as operations manager for a very unusual locksmith shop. We were all factory trained by Trio-Ving for installation of Ving Card keyless entry systems. We had 2 hotel crews traveling the country and the Caribean installing locks in hotel doors. We even did custom work for the Sovereign of the Seas, at that time the worlds largest cruise ship. I never got to travel, I was stuck in the office and doing all the local work. We had special mortising machines which used Craftsman routers to cut the cavities in the doors for the lock mechanisims. You clamped the machine onto the door edge, started the router and cranked a handle which moved the router in a rectangle and then stepped it deeper into the door. My first router was a 1-1/2 HP Craftsman with a nice worklight built in. It served me well for 20 years until Bob and Rick showed me a whole new world of routing. These days I do demonstrations for others with a Router Workshop table and some of their jigs. Simple really is better.
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Mike
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