Get or make _a_ router table, but that one's just far too small.
They're easy to make. Even fences are easy to make. Google. Even my own site has one somewhere.
Router tables are useful for two things: When the router / router cutter is too big to use handheld, or when the workpiece needs to be supported well. For really big things (sinking a lock mortice into a door) then you take a small router to the work. For fairly big moulding cuts on long lengths small strip, then you can use the Aldi table. In the middle though, let's suppose using a round-over cutter on the edge of a tabletop, you need a table because the cut is big but you also need a table a couple of feet square just to support the big heavy chunk of timber you're chucking around.
OTOH, if it's Aldi then it will be cheap. Better that than nothing.
You local library should have woodworking books, including ones on using Routers. They will show you how to make such things as jigs for rebating hinges into doors, how the various accessories work, etc. Trouble is, you'll probably end up wanting to buy a proper router.
It does, I know :-) I would have used the router I have already (another cheapo one) but annoyingly there's no way to lock the power on - you have to hold the switch the whole time.
The PowerCraft one on offer at Aldi has a lock for the trigger switch, and a separate switched socket with green and red power buttons so to use it in the table just leave the power trigger locked on and switch with the buttons provided.
If you google this newsgroup for the last time Aldi sold their router and table combo (a year or so back?), you'll find lots of other incredulous posts about this.
TBH it was so bizarre I can't believe they weren't inundated with complaints, so I'd be quite surprised if it hasn't been sorted.
Many years ago I had a Black and Decker circular saw, which could be attached to a saw-table adapter thing on the side of a Workmate, converting it into a sort-of table saw...
Anyway - the kit came with a red plastic stick thingy with a sprung C-shaped grip at one end, which you clipped around the handle/switch of the upside-down saw, which switched it on. The handle of the stick protruded beyond the table, where it could easily be knocked with a hand as and when required, killing the motor. Sounds very Heath Robinson to write it down, but it actually worked extremely well, both in keeping the saw switched on reliably, and being very easy to switch off.
Expect it would be against all the regs these days though...
It was the time before the last one that didn't fit, I picked up a router and table last time which fitted, but was held in place so loosly that I took the table back.
Has anyone got a link to the official spec for this?
AFAIR, there's a "get out" clause on this which permits switch locks, provided that they're not accessible when table mounted. The idea is that a "locked on" router can be installed in the table (power off, obviously), then controlled by an external switch on the table. The idea of taking this router (and its evil locking switch) out and then using it handheld (clearly a guaranteed cause of Instant Death) is a matter for the user, not for the supply of equipment regs. It's the same loophole that allows heavy dado sets to still be sold.
It's one of the Machinery Directive things, but I can't find the link at the moment.
My understanding was that lock on is no longer permitted on hand held routers and that since most can be used for either, manufacturers go for the line of least product liability.
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