Wayward WorkshopWords of wisdom and tales of woe

I love my router. I just had to get that out of the way up front, so I don’t feel like I’m cheating. A few years ago, I purchased a 2 1/4 hp Bosch 1617EVS router that must be one of the most popular routers on the market, and for good reason. That router has always done everything I’ve asked of it and really hasn’t complained much. The only times I haven’t been entirely thrilled were when I was trying to hold my big router flat on a small, delicate part that I couldn’t bring to my router table for some reason. At those times, guiding a full-size router feels a little like giving a cat a bath: lots of wiggling and squirming, high blood pressure all around, and decidedly poor results. I distinctly recall thinking during one of those early adventures (with the router, no cats) that there must be a better way.

There is, and as soon as I saw a laminate trimmer, I knew that was it. Unfortunately, it took me a few years to work up to purchasing one. When I did, I conducted the normal search of likely alternatives. My favorites were the Ridgid R2400 and the Bosch PR20EVSK, but in the end I really liked the Bosch’s micro-adjust fixed base. Hang on, though, I’ll rave about that later.

When you open the box, the first thing that really strikes you is that the Colt bears an amusing likeness to the full-size 1617EVS router. Shortly after I got the Colt, I was using it in the presence of my wife, who I sort of forgot to inform of my purchase. She stared, somewhat puzzled, at the little router before deciding that my old router must have shrunk.

Out of the box, the Colt acts just like you might guess a little router would: It handles very easily and with no drama. The best part by a long shot is the micro-adjust base. Start out with a coarse adjustment and get pretty close, then hold the motor and rotate the base (or vice versa) a few degrees and the micro-adjust mechanism clicks into place. Then, a little thumb wheel rotates the motor relative to the body for an easy, precise adjustment. That might sound a little complicated, but in practice it works brilliantly.

One of my favorite websites, www.newwoodworker.com, actually reviewed the Colt twice: once with the micro-adjust base and again in “kit” form that includes three bases (including the micro-adjust) and lots of goodies. Tool Snob reviewed the micro-adjust model as well.

I now love two routers, but there’s plenty of love to go around. I hope to leave my big router mounted to its table most of the time and use the Colt for hand-held routing. The only small drawback that I can see is that I own almost entirely 1/2″ router bits, and I’m not too excited about buying a matching set of 1/4″ bits. That said, what could one more multi-colored box hurt…