| Wife got me one a Craftsmand Rotary Tool for Christmas.. I am just | starting to do small woodworking projects and I was considering | purchasing a router and I remembered the rotary tool came with the | plunge router kit. Checking Craftsmans site they even had a small | benchtop router table for it. Would router bits and the router | table for this be worth investing in or should I just buy an actual | router? | | Any advice/comments are appreciated, thanks!
The rotary tools generally only take bits with a 1/8" shank which means that you're pretty much limited to straight (spiral) bits.
I have an inexpensive HF tool that I'd begun to regret spending the money for - until I had a project for which the rotary tool was an obviously right answer. About four inches into the first cut the bit, which hadn't cut particularly well from the beginning, broke and I replaced it with a 1/8" 3-flute solid carbide end mill (not sure why it was in my briefcase, but it was a lucky accident). With the end mill in the tool, it cut as well as any of the full-size routers in my shop.
There are a couple of serious drawbacks with the rotary tool: [1] you're limited to straight bits; and [2] you're limited in terms of _safe_ depth of cut.
Probably the first drawback is sufficient justification for buying a larger router. I have a personal preference for bits with shanks larger than 1/4", and it's worth noting that I've never managed to break any of the larger-shanked bits.
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
formatting link