tsbrewers

Hey people, have a quick question. I am a trim carpenter by trade, and am venturing in to the woodworking side of it. My question today is, I bought a large craftsman router about 8 years ago, and was just wondering if it is worth building a table around it, or go another direction for the router. I do have a couple PC routers now and rarely use the craftman.

It is basically this router, just a few years older. I think I paid about $100 due to it being the display so it would not be too bad to not use it.

Thanks
Brew

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reible

Hi tsbrewers

Welcome to the Forum!

From the time frame you speak of does your router happen to be a 315.275110? That is one that I own from about those days. If you got it for $100 you got a really good deal.

I have mine mounted in a table and it works fine. Well I did do a few things by way of a couple of modifications. First I used cork to plug the open posts, took off the plastic chip guard and added a router lifter. It is dedicated to the table and has served me well. Weighing in at almost 13 pounds I did not like it for hand work but in the table that doesn't matter.

I'd say use it.

Ed

tsbrewers

It is a 315.275062, not really sure what the difference is, probably model years?

Plus, do most people remove the factory base on the plunge router before it is mounted to the insert, or leave it on? Thanks for the help,

Brew

reible

In all case that I know about the sub base is removed before mounting to the table or mounting plate.

Yea sears has a lot of router, don't know how different yours is from mine...

Ed

kp91

You'll have to remove the factory base plate and bolt on a larger router table insert plate. You can either buy a generic blank plate, or one pre-drilled for your router. I've gone both ways, and for $10 more buying a pre-drilled one is cheap. Once you have the size of your insert, you can build your table. Start simple at first, since once you figure out your particular method of work you'll want to re-design your table a couple of times.

Woodcraft
Woodhaven
Oak-Park
Amazon

all have a wide variety of router base plates that should meet your needs.

Work safe, have fun!

__________________
Doug
1 John 1:9

DONALD

Some on line dealers will drill the plate for your router and provide a template for routing a hole in your table to fit the plate. Your router is fairly heavy so look for a strong plate. I have a 17lb. router mounted to a Hartville plate in my router cabinet and I accidently knocked the cabinet over and the plate held up and the router stayed attached. .

tsbrewers

Thanks for the help, just what I was looking for.

Brew

mantelmaker

I have the same craftsman router in a Home depot bosch table with a router raizer. I work with my brother and he bought the router thinking bigger is better. We us the plunge router for routing Jassada templates, and this router was so heavy and difficult to plunge that I went and bought a smaller dewalt for this application. However, because it is strong, we installed it into the router table for making raised panels, unfortunately, the bosch table has a plastic router plate and the weight of the router would sag the plate. Also, the combination doesn't give us enough height above the table to effectively use the larger bits. When I saw how high my brother had to raise the bit out of the collet to cut a raised panel I thought for sure that the bit would fly out. I'm immediately seeking a new table and router setup, and the craftsman router will probably become a dust collector, or watch for it on E-bay. Bob