Router Table Recommendations please - Charnwood W015?

mike49 · 17 Apr 2010

I do a lot of diy and have made my own fitted kitchens (including cupboard doors) etc etc. For years I have struggled with cheaper hand-held power tools but now want to upgrade to a router table and start to do things properly - cut 'rail and style' frames with the router for example, instead of mortise and tenon by hand. I want the accuracy and am looking at the Charnwood W015 floorstanding router table with sliding bed at about £300. Does anyone have any experience of the Charnwood brand and/or are you able to recommend a better alternative for about the same price?
Thanks!

charnwood w015

mike49
17 Apr 2010
1

charnwood w015

r896neo · 17 Apr 2010

I can't speak for the router table but i have a few woodworking tools, table saw, band saw, Planer/thicknesser and a morticer and when looking any charnwood stuff i saw was very much at the hobby end of the market with light-weight tables and more importantly crap fences.

seaangler · 17 Apr 2010

this
http://www.trend-uk.com/en/UK/product/PRT/3/162/professional_router_table_uk_230v_.html
may well be better but would cost about £100 more than the charnwood

mike49 · 17 Apr 2010

Thanks guys! I have wasted enough money in the past buying 'cheap' hobby-rated items, but the Charnwood router table weighs in at a hefty 72Kg, so it looks the business. The Trend table is certainly up to it, but doesn't have a sliding carriage or independently adjustable infeed/ outfeed fences, which one of the reviewers pointed out as serious ommissions, and both of which I would really like. I am still tempted to go with the Charnwood unless I hear from someone who actually has one (and wishes they didn't!)

r896neo · 17 Apr 2010

If you haven't I would definately see one in the flesh before buying it. If the fences and slides seem up to it then it may be just the ticket.

mike49 · 17 Apr 2010

Yes, that makes sense, but I live 'out in the sticks' (I'm 50 miles from the nearest Sainsburys for goodness sake) and was hoping to hear from someone who actually owns one! I have since discovered some very good reviews of the Charnwood W015 elsewhere though, and that Record have a re-badged (and slightly more expensive) version of the same machine.

morrik27 · 22 Apr 2010

Have a look at Wealden tools website, in the tips section ron fox goes about building one.

I bought a router table a few years back, and it was ok, but certainly nothing specital, and the fence was inacurate, i ended up canibalising the vaious fixings, and making one from scratch - that way you can have it at the best height for yourself, put a decent fence on it, and make it as large or as small as you want.

I was originally put off by making my own, but wish i'd done rather than buying one! Whichever route(r

) you go down make it the best height for you, and put the best fence on it you can!

mike49 · 22 Apr 2010

Thanks! By the way, which router table did you buy originally, so that i can avoid making the same mistake!

mike49 · 12 May 2010

In case anyone was wondering, I did eventually decide to buy the Charnwood W015 router table, and have since made all my kitchen cupboard doors with it. The machine is very impressive, weighing in at over 50Kg and has a solid cast-iron table. There’s no plastic on this one! The big cross-cut fence and sliding carriage made it easy to cut the end grain of the rails and to produce professional quality rail-and-stile joints. If you want a portable machine don’t buy this one - it’s massive - but for £300 you get a complete system that is ten times better than anything costing only half the price. I only wish I’d bought one forty years ago!

harveybowden · 15 Jan 2012

Hi Mike 49,

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm about to purchase but have a query re the router bit fitting. Can you mount the 1/2" router bits directly into the router chuck or do you have to add a 60mm extension to reach the table top?
Thanks. Harvey

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Router Table Recommendations please - Charnwood W015?

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