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17 Posts
check out my post under guides and bushings.. i love oak park but there guides are too darned expensive...:sold:
Mike said:In fairness when comparing the large guide bushings developed by Oak Park to the after market copies that Lee Valley sells please make note of the fact that the actual guide portion is thicker on the Oak Park guides. You will spot this when comparing the OD/ID relationship. Having the thicker collar means it is less likely to get bent, stronger if you will. While Lee Valley offers 6 sizes, Oak Park offers 18. I don't fault anybody for wanting to save money. If you built a set of 18 guides using the 6 from Lee Valley in place of the Oak Park guides you would save about $50, and that is a fair chunk of money. Just remember that Oak Park invested their money to develop these guides, to give you 14 seasons of the Router Workshop and this forum. All those video lessons plus the forum? Suddenly $50 doesn't seem like such a big deal.
As I have come to expect from you Mike, there is nothing wrong with you're maths or logic, but consider, there is no real stress on a template guide whilst being used so strength I don't think is of any real consequence and by making the wall thickness greater than necessary simply reduces the clearance for the collet/cutter. The question now Mike is simply do the majority of American routers not have the ability to take the 1 3/8" and 1 1/2" and if the answer is NO, then surely it's a simple matter to make an adaptor, it's even been suggested that Bj has made and posted such a thing. It may appear to some that I'm making a big deal here but once a few projects have been completed using the larger guides word will travel and it will become the norm. as will metric cutters!Mike said:Ok, all the guides in the basic set plus the extended set plus the .308 special undersized guide comes to 18 guide bushings. The Lee Valley 7 piece set has 6 guide bushings. Harry, the 1.5" guide is part of the basic set, not duplicated in the extended set. While both brands have the same wall thickness on the 3/8" and 1-1/2" guides, the in between sizes are thinner from Lee Valley. 1" OD: 7/8" ID from Lee, 3/4" ID from Oak Park. One has a 1/16" wall thickness and the other a 1/8" wall thickness. This is why I suggested they should be stronger, is there something wrong with my math or logic?
Harry, I recommended that just the woodworking industry go metric a long time ago... It would make things a lot easier... no more fractions to mess with... etc. I don't have to tell you...harrysin said:mftha, what do you think the chances are of you, Template Tom and myself convincing routologists in the USA that routing in metric is the way to go?
harrysin said:mftha, what do you think the chances are of you, Template Tom and myself convincing routologists in the USA that routing in metric is the way to go? I'm not attempting to make everyone start driving on the opposite side of the road or to ask Bj to say he is 1.930.4metres tall (1930.4mm or 6'4"). I wonder if Bill Gates would start the ball rolling by handing out free metric template guides and cutters, just a thought!