My first post here, which I'll try to keep concise...
I'm rebuilding an old house and gradually putting together a set of tools as I need them. I now need a decent router as I'm soon going to be doing a set of a dozen or so mortise and tenon joints in 90mm green oak, followed by making some (seasoned) oak plank doors. Three of these are normal size house doors but there's also a couple of pairs of arched barn-type oak doors, one of which is 2.85m in the centre and 2.4m wide. I'm thinking the planks for these doors, which will be ledged and braced, would best be rebated so they overlap, using a large bearing-guided rebate cutter in a (powerful) router. Up to now I've pretty much settled on a Trend T11EK.
I've been using a Bosch GKT55GCE plunge saw with the Bosch-Mafell type FSN guide rails, which is great, and I've just come across the OFA FSN router guide plate adapter, which works with these rails, making it possible to guide the router precisely along a straight edge of the length of those doors. That looks potentially very useful and the adapter doesn't seem too expensive at ~ £60.
There are two potential issues with it, though.
Firstly, the compatible routers don't include any from Trend and I think, apart from the Bosch GOF 1600 and GOF 2000, are all 1/4" routers, which I'm not sure would be up to the kind of work I need to do.
Bosch - G0F 900, G0F 1300, G0F 1400, G0F 1600, G0F 1250, G0F 2000, TE 600 (GKF 600)
Festool - 0F 1010 EBQ
Mafell - L0 50E
DeWalt - DW 621, DW 26203
Makita - RP 1110, RP 0900
Secondly, the adapter limits the maximum cutter diameter. I'm waiting to find out precise details but Graham at Bosch said it was 'about 50mm'. Trend's large rebater is 50.8mm, so it's possible it won't fit.
I'm planning to get a router table, UJK Technology Professional from Axminster, as soon as they have them back in stock. They've been unable to supply the demand since these tables have been so well reviewed. Certainly came out best from the ones I've looked into, particularly as I need the phenolic resin top rather than cast iron in my damp (ocassionally flooded!) basement workshop. The Trend height being adjustable from above seems like a big plus, saving on the expensive router lifter.
So, given all this, a couple of questions:
How useful is it going to be to be able to use the router with a guide rail, particularly for long rebate runs?
Is this an important enough factor to 'let go' of the Trend - is it more important, for example, than being able to adjust the height of the Trend from above when mounted in a table?
How does the build quality of the two Bosch machines compare to that of the Trend? For example, do they use Phosphor bronze bushes? I read yesterday that the Bosch plunge saw has plastic gears..?! I don't know if that's true, but it's worried me about the longevity of these tools. The Trend T11 has consistently been rated very highly by reviewers and users; I've read far fewer comments about the Bosch GOF 2000 and of course the GOF 1600 hasn't been around long but I did get some negative feedback about it on the mafell user forum yesterday...
All feedback much appreciated.
Ian
I'm rebuilding an old house and gradually putting together a set of tools as I need them. I now need a decent router as I'm soon going to be doing a set of a dozen or so mortise and tenon joints in 90mm green oak, followed by making some (seasoned) oak plank doors. Three of these are normal size house doors but there's also a couple of pairs of arched barn-type oak doors, one of which is 2.85m in the centre and 2.4m wide. I'm thinking the planks for these doors, which will be ledged and braced, would best be rebated so they overlap, using a large bearing-guided rebate cutter in a (powerful) router. Up to now I've pretty much settled on a Trend T11EK.
I've been using a Bosch GKT55GCE plunge saw with the Bosch-Mafell type FSN guide rails, which is great, and I've just come across the OFA FSN router guide plate adapter, which works with these rails, making it possible to guide the router precisely along a straight edge of the length of those doors. That looks potentially very useful and the adapter doesn't seem too expensive at ~ £60.
There are two potential issues with it, though.
Firstly, the compatible routers don't include any from Trend and I think, apart from the Bosch GOF 1600 and GOF 2000, are all 1/4" routers, which I'm not sure would be up to the kind of work I need to do.
Bosch - G0F 900, G0F 1300, G0F 1400, G0F 1600, G0F 1250, G0F 2000, TE 600 (GKF 600)
Festool - 0F 1010 EBQ
Mafell - L0 50E
DeWalt - DW 621, DW 26203
Makita - RP 1110, RP 0900
Secondly, the adapter limits the maximum cutter diameter. I'm waiting to find out precise details but Graham at Bosch said it was 'about 50mm'. Trend's large rebater is 50.8mm, so it's possible it won't fit.
I'm planning to get a router table, UJK Technology Professional from Axminster, as soon as they have them back in stock. They've been unable to supply the demand since these tables have been so well reviewed. Certainly came out best from the ones I've looked into, particularly as I need the phenolic resin top rather than cast iron in my damp (ocassionally flooded!) basement workshop. The Trend height being adjustable from above seems like a big plus, saving on the expensive router lifter.
So, given all this, a couple of questions:
How useful is it going to be to be able to use the router with a guide rail, particularly for long rebate runs?
Is this an important enough factor to 'let go' of the Trend - is it more important, for example, than being able to adjust the height of the Trend from above when mounted in a table?
How does the build quality of the two Bosch machines compare to that of the Trend? For example, do they use Phosphor bronze bushes? I read yesterday that the Bosch plunge saw has plastic gears..?! I don't know if that's true, but it's worried me about the longevity of these tools. The Trend T11 has consistently been rated very highly by reviewers and users; I've read far fewer comments about the Bosch GOF 2000 and of course the GOF 1600 hasn't been around long but I did get some negative feedback about it on the mafell user forum yesterday...
All feedback much appreciated.
Ian
