My poor router bearings

[Owen Lawrence]

I was SO happy getting my Freud FT2000E router. Finally I had lots of power and a machine that should be sturdy enough to withstand any of my hobby use. I spent much of last year building my router table, and finally put it to good work on my window sill project.

I've probably got less than 2 hours of run time on this thing. More like one hour. Light passes, too; I did NOT stress this baby. Imagine my disappointment when it started making this huge noise last Saturday. Today I paid the $90C repair bill for the new bearings it needed. (Of course the warrantee expired almost exactly one month ago.) The repair man told me he'd press the manufacturer to honour the warrantee if it was the armature or something like that, but not for bearings because they wear out, and they're really strict about their policies. "Especially if it's hanging in a router table, because the dust settles on the bearings, and even though they're "sealed", they're not really sealed, and the dust draws the oil out of the bearings."

Does any of this sound reasonable to you? I'm doing this hobby for fun, not for profit, but let me tell you the fun goes out of it really fast when it gets this expensive.

- Owen -

[noonenparticular]

Owen,

I know this doesn't help you now, but I could have helped you avoid this experience as my father had the *exact* same thing happen to his freud router.

I guees at least they're consistent.

jc

[Dan]

On Tue 24 Jan 2006 07:41:35p, "noonenparticular" wrote in news:jHABf.27798$ [e-mail]:

Okay, that helps. I've been trying to decide whether I want to dedicate the Hitachi or the Freud to the router table. Guess it'll be the Hitachi.

Dan

[Rob Mills]

[Owen Lawrence]

We do have a bearing supply store in town. My experience is that bearings are expensive. Here's how my bill broke down:

Bearing 1: 16.18 (One ringy-dingy) Bearing 2: 33.36 (Two ringy-dingy - snort snort) Labour: 28.00 (Seems fair) GST: 5.43 (Welcome to PST: 6.20 Canada) Total 89.17 (OUCH!!)

It adds up fast. Thing is, there was no way *I* could have known that a single new bearing was all that was needed. (One router I had just disintegrated inside; plastic fan bits got in the works. No way I could repair it myself.) If it happens again I'll recognize the (awful) sound and probably know what to do. I sure hope it doesn't happen again, though. At least not for a very very long time.

At this point I'm not really planning to change the way I work. I plan to add a vacuum attachment eventually, but my experience so far shows that most (not all, of course) of the dust stays above the router table. I vacuum it out manually once in awhile, but I really don't do so much woodworking that it should be a big deal. I tell the story here just in case I really am doing something wrong by not having a vacuum howling in harmony with my router. It'll take some convincing, though. Freud even sells a router table, and not a word was mentioned about it at the wood show where I bought it.

- Owen -

[Toller]

An hour's use in a year?!

[Leon]

Absolutely not. My Bosch hung in the router table for ummmm over 14 years.

[Rob Mills]

[George M. Kazaka]

I have never seen any router bearing costing more than about 12 bucks and have never seen both bearings go at the same time, appears you got a raw deal on both ends,

Over a lot of years I have had a few routers have bearing failure within a couple of months but for the most part I beat them to death over a long period of time.

I am a pro with approx. twenty five or so routers of various sizes in my shop at any given time and probably have purchased more than 150 routers (wild guess) probably more.

Bearings in just about every woodworking machine or tool I have every repaired have been reasonably priced. I usually only buy them at a bearing supply house

Good luck, George

[Rob Mills]

[Robert Krecak]

Owen, What you describe is a very common occurrence when a router is used as a shaper, especially with large diameter router bits on a table. I own a heavy duty Milwaukee router that is used in my router table. I keep several extra shaft ball bearings and replace them as needed. It is actually pretty easy and the bearings cost less than $10 each. They don't last too long in a router table application before you begin to hear bearing noise. I also own a heavy duty shaper and use it for operations that remove a lot of material like raising panels, cope joints for door frames etc. Unfortunately, if you look at the diameter and width of most router bearings you'll see that they are not really made for use with large diameter bits on a router table.

[Owen Lawrence]

I thought someone might take me to task over that. For most cuts it's only running for a few seconds (say less than 30), and I spent a long time just building the router table. My reality is that I divide my free time into many many pieces, and woodworking is just one of them.

- Owen -

[Mike Berger]

I bought the Freud FT2000, and looked it over when I got home. The specs were similar to the Hitachi M12V, and a lot of people didn't like the 1/4" sleeve adaptor for the collet on the Hitachi.

I didn't like the fit and f> I was SO happy getting my Freud FT2000E router. Finally I had lots of

[Mike Berger]

[Doug Payne]

The cost before taxes is still over $67 US at today's rates. That's an OUCH!! no matter where you are (I'm in Canada too).

[Leon]

I am thinking the indicated Canadian Tax on the sum of charges should be enough for some one to realise Canadian currency.

[Juergen Hannappel]

[...]

What kind of bearing? I recently bought two (low-cost, not really SKF) ball bearings with 30mm inner diameter and one small one with 30mm outer, all sealed, for 20EUR....

[no(SPAM)vasys]

I've had my FT2000E sitting in the router table for about 10 years. The bearings are fine.

[badger]

Older stock, better parts!

[J T]

Tue, Jan 24, 2006, 8:07pm [e-mail] (Owen=A0Lawrence) lamenteth: "Especially if it's hanging in a router table, because the dust settles on the bearings, and even though they're "sealed", they're not really sealed, and the dust draws the oil out of the bearings." =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Does any of this sound reasonable to you?

Nope. I had a Craftsman router hanging in a router table, for years. It quit, not due to bearings, and I opened it up. Not a bit of dust inside.

JOAT You only need two tools: WD-40, and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and shouldn't, use the tape.