[Jaco Maatman]

Dear Fellow woodworkers,
I recently was lucky enough to find a working Black & Decker HD1250 router for €9,50 at my local thriftshop. I am so in love with the looks and feels of this device (picture below) that I desperatly want to restore it to the best of my abilities. I contacted Black & Decker for info but they where not able to answer all my questions.

I am still looking for a replacement collet. Since I'm not sure which type of collets I can use in this machine I thought I'll ask you guys.
I added the photo of the router and a drawing I made of the collet.

Hope someone can help me find this part!

 

[Stick486]

welcome N/A to forums...

look to a machine shop supply for the collet...
https://www.travers.com/search.aspx?keyword=collets

you could look here...
https://elairecorp.com/routercollets.html

 

[PhilBa]

While you are looking for the collet, you might as well get brushes. Maybe yours does not need them but they are usually cheap and easy to replace.

 

[Jaco Maatman]

Hello guys,
Thanks for the advise! I'll open the badboy up and see what kind of brushes are inside. Didn't even think about it with all these facy brushless tools these days

For the collet, what should I keep in mind? obviously get something which matches the dimensions as closely as possible. But the "head" for example is flat on my collet. would it be a problem if it isn't that on a replacement part? I see some collets have a thread on the "but" woud that be a problem? Is there a type of collet I should be looking for? I know that the CNC at my work for example uses ER25 collets, is there such a standard for this kind of router?

I'm fairly new to this, as this is my first ever router and I never had to think about these things wen my boss just provides the right collets and bits for the tools we use there.
Getting realy excited about it, tested it recently with some cheap chinese 45degree bits to make a chamfer on some 18mm birch plywood. worked like a charm! After that I tested with some chinese flush bits but noticed the bit was coming out of the collet. (checked the shaft and it was actually 6,3mm which should be good). So I really think this collet is unsafe to work with.

 

[PhilBa]

Hello guys,
Thanks for the advise! I'll open the badboy up and see what kind of brushes are inside. Didn't even think about it with all these facy brushless tools these days

For the collet, what should I keep in mind? obviously get something which matches the dimensions as closely as possible. But the "head" for example is flat on my collet. would it be a problem if it isn't that on a replacement part? I see some collets have a thread on the "but" woud that be a problem? Is there a type of collet I should be looking for? I know that the CNC at my work for example uses ER25 collets, is there such a standard for this kind of router?

I'm fairly new to this, as this is my first ever router and I never had to think about these things wen my boss just provides the right collets and bits for the tools we use there.
Getting realy excited about it, tested it recently with some cheap chinese 45degree bits to make a chamfer on some 18mm birch plywood. worked like a charm! After that I tested with some chinese flush bits but noticed the bit was coming out of the collet. (checked the shaft and it was actually 6,3mm which should be good). So I really think this collet is unsafe to work with.

Standards? We only wish. Collets are often pretty specific to the router. Even a given manufacturer will often have different and incompatible types. Thread size for the nut and the collet "receiver" size are both important. (I use receiver but don't know if that's the correct term, it's opening the collet goes into). You might luck out and find other more recent routers that use the same collet/nut. Getting that information is pretty hard as the manufacturers don't list those specs.

On looseness, how hard did you tighten the nut? It needs to be pretty tight. And, bits made of Chinesium are often well out of spec, including roundness. The difference between 6.3 and 6.35mm is, indeed, fairly small (2 mils) which should be ok. How does the collet look? Especially the area where it contacts the bit shaft. clean or beaten up? They generally don't wear out but rather take some abuse. I'd degrease it, by the way. Probably not the problem but worth a try.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

For the most part I don't think router makers also made their collets. I think most of them outsource collets. I've found some crossovers. For example there are over 20 models and several brtands of routers that use a collet made by Accurate Electric. Bosch, Hitachi (M12V2, VC, and VE models), and many DeWalts, and there may be a few others. An old DeWalt 610 I have appears to use a collet that was designated as a Bosch WK style. My older Hitachi (M12V) uses a collet that I think an older Makita also used.

So there is a possibility that there were other routers that used that collet but I can't say which ones that might be. If you look through pictures on sites that sell collets like Elaire for example you might see one that looks like yours and if it looks like it then I'd bet that it is the same one since there seem to be a limited number of suppliers.

 

[DaninVan]

Hey, Jaco; welcome!
Just out of curiosity, are you working with metric parts and bits? I see you're in Holland.
A lot of the members use and swear by 'Musclechuck' ...that might be another avenue to explore.
https://www.musclechuck.com/shop/

 

[Stick486]

Hey, Jaco; welcome!
Just out of curiosity, are you working with metric parts and bits? I see you're in Holland.

good point...
Imperial and Metric shank sizes...
things that don't mix well..

 

[thomas1389]

While you are looking for the collet, you might as well get brushes. Maybe yours does not need them but they are usually cheap and easy to replace.

If you're getting brushes you might just as well get a comb too, and why is the room empty in the picture? Are you going to build furniture? Just wondering..

 

[Jaco Maatman]

Thanks for all the response guys!
I'm located in holland so I will probbably also get a metric 8mm collet for this machine. However this router is British made and came with a 3/8 collet (which roughly translates to 6,35mm) The bits i bought where advertised as 3/8 and most of them turn out to actually be this as well. For now I just need to find a collet that fits, regardless of it being 3/8 inch or 8mm. The Bosch type of collets seem quite similar in shape so I will dig a bit deeper into those. While the musclechuck system looks really good, I don't think it is the right time and router to invest in a $100 system like that.

Indeed my room is/was really empty, I just moved to a new appartment and am making/fixing some furniture
For the interested theres pictures of floating shelves with super minimal chamfers done with the 45 degree chinesium, and a mitre box made with the flushcut bit.