Router bit comparisons

FWW did a "Router Bit Matchup" in 1999, I believe.

Also, I've seen and read plenty of negative press on the auto industry.

You are not reading the wrong mags but perhaps not long enough. IIRC Wood had a router bit article a few years back. The article was concerning different brand straight cut bits, how well they cut and how long they cut well. IIRC this happened just before Jesada sold out.

Yup. the GM coverage was staged. Ford OTOH lost sales on the big Crown Vic to many police departments because of the potential of an explosion when rear ended. Also the old Mustangs had the gas tank/bottom of the trunk that would rupture and soak the occupants of the car with gasoline when rear ended. And then the Ford tucks of recent years having a massive recall because of the cruise control switch under the hood that caused the vehicles to catch on fire including the houses that they were housed in. Gosh, do you remember the Ford/Firestone news concerning the roll over Explorers? Not to mention the millions of recalls by all manufacturers that are covered by the news regularly.

You'd think they would have learned a lesson about that from the Pinto disaster in the 70s...

That may be the theory but the practice is that they beat up the auto industry pretty thoroughly in the '60s and '70s and got laws passed that implemented all of the changes that they were demanding (safety laws, emission laws, defect reporting laws, recall laws, etc) then Ralph Nader shot himself in the foot by attacking a major cultural icon and lost his street value and now they've moved on to other things.

How would you put together such a comparison? What criteria would you use? Seems to me that it would be difficult to put together any really objective evaluation criteria.

shank diameter balance & vibration coating quality carbide quality bearing runout shape consistency of cutters

Things I can't measure but do affect the quality of the cut and the wear on routers. They do all kinds of tests on dust collectors with flow meters and the like so critical tests of router bits could also be done.

Sure I could by the most expensive and hope for the best but that doesn't always work.

I don't know how anyone could say auto makers haven't taken an ass whipping at the hands of the press. Anywhere from basic design flaws to their business model has been beaten to death in the business pages since the 70's and the first gas shortage.

This is probably the article on router bits that people are remembering:

Add to that (as did the FWW review someone else already posted a link to) a comparative measure of cut quality for sample cuts and number of feet before seeing any notable degradation, etc., etc., ...

For at least one, it certainly does -- you can rely on Amana to ALWAYS be absolute top quality. After them, Whiteside and CMT will run a very close race for "value" and will rarely, if ever, disappoint.

Only when you go to the "no-name" importers imo are you going to have much variability from one to another, and then, imo, you still take a chance that from one time you buy a bit from a particular distributor there's no guarantee the next time they're using the same supplier so I really only think the comparative tests have any validity for the "name" manufacturers or for a very short time-duration for the others.

All, of course, imo, ymmv, $0.02, etc., etc., ... :)

Here are couple items about the way automakers/dealers, realtors, and the like control what gets in the paper.

itself?...........

Why do you have such a bug up your butt about the auto industry?

Did a dealer screw you over? If so, choke it down and move on.

you seem to feel...

It _is_, of course, a free market and advertisers are consequently free to choose where and how they spend their advertising dollar. Publishers have to decide what is significant to them. Unfortunately, what happens far too often (and seemed in the instances I read in the above article to be mostly the case) is that the zealous reporter is out to make a scandal in order to create a "name" for himself as much or more than to really report an actual problem. Not that there aren't legitimate issues to be raised in many of these stories, but I read far too many that are so obviously based on a particular preconceived opinion that the actual story is so biased in its presentation as to be nearly fiction.

Never said I did. I just used it as an example of how some advertisers can influence content and wondered if advertisers in WW mags had the same kind of clout. Maybe not since the target market is so small.

If anything I have a bug up my butt about 'news'papers and TV news and their alleged objectivity.

Of course not, the guy told me his boss was gonna give him hell the next day for selling me the truck so cheap.

I agree with you on that. One of the biggest frauds the media pushes is abortion. Look at the second question of the CNN poll from Aug-Sep

Hey guys, when you decide to changethe subject, could you change he subject line, too?

AMEN! I couldn't agree more. Some people are so anxious for any opening to voice their opinons they can't even connect the dots to the orignal post.

And some, like dgb even take partial post out of context (mine) and repost with another posters comments to make it seem as if I said something else. Sloppy, sloppy work.

If you cannot pay attention to the subject, then pay attention to what you are doing.

Robert

(who is perfectly capable of speaking for himself)

I will if JOAT will.

snipped-for-privacy@milmac.com (Doug Miller) wrote in news:RwShh.4597$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net:

The old Mustangs practically WERE the old Pintos. They had a very bad run of years for a while there.

Patriarch

RayV wrote: : You will rarely, if ever, see an article or expose' that reflects the : auto industry in a negative way on either TV or in local paper.

Sure you will. Read car reviews. Read the business section. Etc.

: Does the same hold true for router bits?

Your premise about cars is false.

: Almost every issue of the mags I get have THE ULTIMATE power tool : comparison. Every once in a while they will throw in a TS blade : comparsion. I don't ever recall seeing a router bit comparison.

Why do you think router bit makers would have so much more power over editor than tablesaw, blade, router, or jigsaw makers?

Fine Woodworking did one a few years ago, using straight bits in melamine. Ratings were based at least partially on amount of chipout. Other than that, I don't recall having seen one either.

Many articles are submitted by readers. So, why don't you design a test for router bits, subm,it the proposal to a good mag, and see what happens?

-- Andy Barss