JMG

I have had several close calls and minor plus not so minor work related accidents in my career, mostly due to lack of experience or related to fatigue and lack of concentration. I've seen others have worse incidents, and not so worse ones too. Was working on a jobsite with my father once where he was using an old D handle drill he had scrounged from some trash heap at his old job. It was an old beast with no reverse, single speed, and had a tendency to shock you due to a lack of proper ground connection to the metal casing on it, and I had several nicknames for it... Anyway, he was using it to drill a hole in the floor one day, and I was working on something on the other end of the room when I hear an odd sound, and turn around to see him hopping up and down, looking and sounding like a monkey in the zoo (Oooo Oooo Oooo). When I asked what was wrong I here this somewhat high pitched response; "Pinched me nutz!!!". Seems that the loose fitting khaki pants he liked to wear got caught in the chuck of the beast... I had tears running down my face from the painful hilarity I was witnessing as he spent a few minutes extricating himself from that trap. No way I was going to offer a helping hand on that one. Couldn't see straight anyways.

No instagram links on the main page?

I have four of the base model units and sort of wish I had invested in one of the multi base kits when they were producing them. They are simply excellent small routers. Solid, stable, and easy to adjust. In my opinion, they were the best trimmers available at the time they were produced. If they are knocking down that much cash these days used, then there must be a bunch of similar opinions out there. I put mine through a lot back when I still had my shop and have not had to rebuild any of them. I can't say what exactly might make them so special to command such a price these days (outside of demand), but I have never had any remorse from buying all of the ones I do have...

For all those who still want to play in the sand...

Have you run a search for him on Facebook?

@SetBuilder I am curious as to why you would need plans when it is all shown in the video. They even tell you where to buy the hardware... Just pick a dimension for the height you want and improvise. Have one of your CNC jocks lay out something on the software package and go to town. As long as you are not producing the item for sale, then it should be fair use. You could also start a trial membership at the following link to see if there are any dimensions in the article that would help you build your own. I believe that the article was written by the original designer. http://www.finehomebuilding.com/2013/09/12/three-legged-sawhorses

Wow, I am somewhat taken aback that someone actually sued them over this. I always just took it for granted that they were inflating numbers as standard marketing practice and only ever looked at the final price of one of their product offerings when buying from them. I think it would be too much trouble to go through all of my credit card statements just to find a few items to get a minimal discount, when it is easier just to use one of their current percent off coupons. Thanks for posting though...

@SetBuilder Just google "laminate backed veneer" and you will get plenty of links to manufacturers. Your local laminate supplier should also have a line on this item type as well. The fill & sand on the bending ply is just to level off any minor bumps or voids prior to lamination (not a complete fill), as the veneers available as standard are mostly applied to vertical grade backers. Sheet sizes should be available in most standard laminate sizes and probably available in custom size or veneer with minimum purchase restrictions. You can produce solid wood corner solutions if the phenolic backer edge line is objectionable to the designer. Otherwise it is applied using standard lamination processes. At butt seam locations, it is a good idea to use a magic marker on the substrate, that is a close match to the final color, so that if there is some minor shrinkage, the disparity in color will not be as noticeable. Markers can also be used with standard laminate seams as well. Nothing is worse than having a seam open up a small amount on a black laminate project to expose a light color back board when a black magic marker could have pre-colored the seam area leaving it almost unnoticeable if there was movement in that particular area. I worked in Florida where contractors routinely insisted on millwork being installed prior to the building environment being stabilized, even though the specifications stated otherwise. Movement in the installed product was one of the issues on call backs and punch lists at times and always used against you as the producer even though the contractor was the party at fault for violation of procedure. Complaining about it would just get you black-listed, so planning ahead to avoid the issue became a standard operating procedure.

Curiosity; Do you not have access to a laminate backed wood veneer? Or is there an issue with expansion/contraction at the veneer joints that would cause any problems in using it? Or requirements of specific bookmatching on the veneers? I probably would have used two layers of 3/8" bending grade ply inside and out and then used the phenolic backed veneer over that to span any deviations, after fill and sand. If the flexibility of the the glue is an issue, you could hard glue the laminated veneer to the outer face. The inner face would be too much trouble to hard glue and is generally trapped by the shape itself so contact glue wouldn't generally be an issue there. Applying MDF seems like a bit of a pain, even if you are shooting for a paint grade surface...

Radius work... Always fun and challenging. Made even more so if the customer requires a solid wood face wrap at full dimension thickness.

Always amazed at the creativity displayed in the pursuit of ones pleasures... This one deserves an award. Most I ever did was attach magnets to the back side of caps and the stick them all over the fridge.

@Conductor562 Could you not build a temporary plywood container to the size you need, line it with foil backed foam insulation sheet material, and heat it with a Milwaukee or other brand heat gun, using a double wall exhaust tube as an inlet? The set temperature for powder isn't that extreme and a food thermometer could be used to watch the temp while manually controlling the heat gun. You might have to experiment with an exhaust vent size to help control the heat, but I think for limited use, building something would work well enough for such a short term heat cycle. If there is a concern of ignition of any fumes, then just run a pipe around the interior and straight to an exhaust port without exposing the interior space directly to the heat being generated.

I have at least six trim routers in my kit, and if this model becomes available here in the US shortly after its release in Australia, and also withstands the first test, I could see it replacing all of the current ones I keep. Most of the ones I have are set up for specific operations that do not generally require constant power and I find it easier and more efficient to grab a specific trimmer for a task than to change up and make adjustments every time I need one. One out of the group is kept for the purpose of the misc. setups that are not needed on a regular basis, and that unit might see longer runs in one setting than the others do,but overall, the trim routers are not a workhorse in the shop or on the job site. They are the convenient, quick fix, inexpensive tool that save me time and take up minimal space and not having to drag out a wire every time I need one would just be icing on the cake.

Looks like they lost a ton of money on that glitch...

I am getting a warning from Firefox that the login connection is not secure and could be compromised, whenever I attempt to login now. Encryption issues?

Made by a specific manufacturer? Pic please of it open?

Is that a Makita multi-tool I see in that stash?

In today's world, if you own a tool and someone else injures themselves using it, can you be held liable for that injury? You can't fix stupid, and you also can't avoid litigation when stupid decides that you should have done the work for them so that they wouldn't have been hurt by your tool. Yes, this is an extreme example, but it is entirely possible that someone might go this far if they think you have an insurance policy that they could access like a lottery ticket, even if it was their own stupidity that was the cause of the problem. Even if you win in a situation like this, you lose monetarily. I prefer not to let Murphy gain an edge on me by loaning tools to someone who may or may not know how to use them, take care of them, or return them immediately after use after having cleaned them or refilled the gas tank to the same level as when they borrowed it. Having to chase a tool down when I need it because someone decided that it was okay to hang on to it because it wasn't important enough of an item to return to it's rightful owner and that the owner might have forgotten who borrowed it and never come looking for it, is not high on my list of things to do today. Having to run to the gas station and fill a tank before returning home to use a tool after getting it back or having to chase it down in the first place is even lower on that list. There is only one person that I will currently loan tools to without reservation and that person does not like to borrow them, unless it is an emergency. It is a matter of trust, and that has been stretched pretty thin in my case over the last couple of decades.

If I judge someone to be worthy of assistance, when they ask to borrow a tool I will state that I only loan tools if I am attached to them. Otherwise, I do not consider it impolite to simply state that my tools are not available for loan.

My brothers favorite comment: Don't clap, just throw money...

I don't have an issue with the actual operation of my tools. It is the sloppy fit that gets to me. The first attempt at sliding a 9ah battery into the super hawg ended up with the battery jamming against the battery post on the tool and not sliding into place on the first try. This caused the OCD to kick in and I started comparing all of the different brands I currently own. The battery slop on my Milwaukee tools exceeds that of all of the others I personally own. The best fit on batteries goes to the Fein tools I have, followed by Makita, Metabo, Dewalt, and then Milwaukee, in that order. I dumped the Bosch line years ago due to a high percentage of critical motor failures. Those are the primary platforms I own and is simply what I see about the batteries fitting onto the tools themselves and has absolutely nothing to do with any of the tools performance of their intended function. I don't go in for a fanboy attitude about tool platforms. I use what works for me no matter the brand. The battery fit on the Milwaukee tools I have annoy the F#*$ out of me. Simple statement about a simple issue and it reflects on the OCD side of my personality. Nothing more, nothing less.

Made all of those myself. At the time CNC machines were not readily available. Any acrylic should do the trick, it's just that I have found that Corian wears better than most blends available. Good tensile strength and not too soft. It also helped that I had lots of left over material to work with.

One of my nephews just bought his first house, so I have been sifting through all of my tools looking for duplicates and passing them along. I have to agree that getting low ball offers on an item is too much of an insult to bother with. I would rather let an item rot then deal with the attitudes most times. Paying it forward works well enough for many items, but only if someone really needs the item. Marginal items generally get tossed. The other insult that you run into is when you give something to someone and then they accidentally tell you how much they got for it on eBay.

If you have any OCD issues with fit and finish, the loose/sloppy fit of the batteries on the Milwaukee will drive you nuts. I evidently have some of those issues.