Porter Cable Router Purchase Question

[L Anthony Johnson]

I'm just a hobbyist woodworker who does a little carpentry around the house. I want to be able to create some crown molding at home using a router on the router table I am about to build. This will allow to create crown molding for the home and some other projects that I have in mind.

I've already purchased the router bit for the crown molding:

've done my research and narried my router purchase down to 2 models:

The Porter Cable 7518 (3 1/4 hp) The Poter Cable 895PN 2 1/4 HP Mult-Base Router Kit

Essentially, if the 2 1/4 horse power can handle the crown modling bit, I would perfer to purchase the 895. If it can't, then the 7518 will have to do. More power, sigh. I don't ANTICIPATE having to do anything more strenuous with the router than creating the crown molding.

[patriarch]

"L Anthony Johnson" wrote in news:e%wbd.170904$ [e-mail]:

How much of this do you want to do?

What wood?

Do you have a table saw, with dado stack, to 'hog out' any portion of the profile, before taking it to the router table?

If it were me, I'd go with the bigger router, for a couple of reasons:

• The 7518 has more horsepower, even if you are considering 'router horses' here.

• The 7518 has been in production for a lot longer.

• The 7518 uses more metal in its important parts.

• The 89x series has been reported to have bearing heating issues, for what may be good and valid engineering reasons.

• You are going to be asking a router to do what, in production runs, would almost certainly be done on a molding cutter, such as a W&H, or, perhaps, a shaper, with an induction motor (bigger 'horses', higher expected duty cycle). Get the biggest router you can, and try not to over stress it.

What's special about these mouldings that you want to do them yourself?

Patriarch

[L Anthony Johnson]

For the crown molding I"ll be using PINE. Later, when I re-do my closets, I may be using Oak or Cherry.

I don't have a dado stack, but I do have a table saw jig that cuts cove molding.

I have read this somewhere else, too.

I may not have been clear before, but I am only a *hobbyist*. This router will only be used on the weekends and special projects for things I build for the home.

Self-Gratification.

I just took up woodworking a little over a year ago and would like to be able to create moldings, if needed. I created some crown molding shelves (Oct or Nov 2003 Wood Magazine) sometime ago, that required popular crown molding. Needless to say, I couldn't find any. That led me to build the cove molding jig I saw in another Wood magazine. THe Moldings turned out okay, but required a lot of sanding and scraping.

This is all a part of my learning process.

If I weren't a hobbyist and time was of the essence, then I probably would be asking about a millwork company.

L Anthony Johnson

[patriarch]

"L Anthony Johnson" wrote in news:6hzbd.170938$ [e-mail]:

I suspect that, for pine or cherry, the smaller HP router would be fine. Oak may be another story.

The PC 693 router my wife got me for Christmas a couple of years ago has plenty of power for medium-sized bits, taking reasonable depth cuts, in all but the hardest woods, for the work I do.

Consider getting the 690 series router, rather than the 75xx series. Various iterations are available with a PC supplied rebate, and they are both rock-solid and well supported with add-on gear. You give up some of the potential slick feature set of the 89x series, but you will be highly unlikely to have a failure with the 690.

Patriarch, also a hobbyist, but sliding towards the edge of fanaticism...

[patrick conroy]

Then this is a "tuffie"... You'll be able to move faster with the bigger machine. You'd have to take lighter bites with the smaller router.

Once you're done with the moldings in the house - then personally, I'd rather have the smaller router around - if I had a small stable of routers.

On the other hand - if you've got the money, then an approach could be to buy the big dog, for the moldings; when done hang it upsidedown in a router table and buy a smaller PC 690'ish or DeWalt 621'ish one for other tasks.

Me? (1) I'd not make the molding myself (2) if I was going to try it, I'd buy the smaller one (actually, I'd use my 690) and take real light cuts and see how it goes before popping for the big 3 HP one.

[Unisaw A100]

Don't be fooled by thinking the bigger router will go to waste. It's actually the opposite, or at least that's the way I've found it to be true.

UA100

[Bannerstone]

If you gotta have a heavy router for a specific application then that's that. The 7518 is the standard for table use and the design has served well for many years. Can't go wrong. As a first router for an up and coming carpenter like yourself you'll kinda hate it for hand work, which is why you'll want a smaller one as well. My favs are the 693's and the old PC/Rockwell mod 100s, the bodys and bases interchange.

David

[Leonard Lopez]

I currently own 3 PC routers. I started with the 1.5 HP 693 series and did an entire kitchen with it. It a very good router for hand work, but for some jobs, the extra power of the 3 HP 7518 is very nice to have in the table. You can push nearly anything you want by it! By having the two, I no longer need to keep mounting and dismounting the

693 from the table.

The 3rd router is a 8529 2HP plunge router. I got it when Home Depot gave them away for $100. You can plunge route with a fixed base router like the 693 or 7518, but its a bit tricky. The plunge router fills that gap.

Multiple routers are a big benefit when working on a complex project with many parts. You can set up each router with a different bit and leave it that way for the duration of the project. Helps with accuracy and repeatability.

Len

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L Anth> I'm just a hobbyist woodworker who does a little carpentry around the house.