Delta/Onsrud pin router for school shop?

[Dave Cav]

I teach high school shop. The middle school next door had a shop program, but the program was shut down years ago and the shop turned into an art classroom. (They have the heaviest art classroom tables in the school district.) Most of the woodworking equipment was put in storage and a couple of years ago I took out the PM drill presses and band saws to use in my shop to replace some of the elderly stuff I had. One of the things left was a Delta/CR Onsrud pin or overarm router. I know next to nothing about these things, and have never used one. It seems to be an odd thing to chose for a middle school shop, and appears to be practically unused. I was wondering if there would be any application in my high school shop. Anyone have any experience with one of these? It's my understanding that these are used primarily in a production environment, and I don't recall ever seeing one in a school shop before. It looks like if the arm were removed it would make a good router table, but there's no provision for a fence, and so from a liability standpoint I don't know if that would be a good idea. Anyway, any comments?

Thanks.
Dave

[mickey cassiba]

Completely useless machine...let me know where it's at and I will pick it up and dispose of it for free...just kidding!
Kind of a specialty machine...Others will be chiming in shortly. Hopefully with wise and sage advice as to the use , care and feeding of the beast.
I worked on a couple in the recon shop, though at the time I didn't know what they did, or were capable of doing. Now that I've made the leap from fixing WW machinery to using it, I could thik of plenty of uses in a teaching environment...but only in a very advanced class.
Probably sell it and buy needed supplies for the basic WW education would be the prudent option.

[Rick Fisher]

There are 2 types.. Inverted, and router on top.. The inverted are supposed to be much safer..

I have been reading lots about them, I get the impression they are about as good as it gets for template and pattern cutting..

Also get the feeling that the ones with the motor on the top are kinda dangerous.. dont think I would own one..

The inverted units are interesting.. Often cheap, used.. Seems $1000 will get you a heavy duty machine in good shape..

If you wanted to teach kids what they are used for .. sure.. I dont see you letting a bunch of kids use one..

[Rick Lizek]

I've used both types of pin routers in commercial and custom shops. Very suitable for one offs or custom. Never understood why the idea of only production comes to mind. You won't find any real books and articles on the machines that does more than touch briefly on the machines as most industrial specialized info is handed down from previous operators of the machines.

Please don't take it apart. I've been to far too many service calls on tools that were taken apart. Someone eventually tosses the loose parts out because they don't know what they go to and you end up with half a machine you can't buy parts for.

Under table pin routers are definitely safer than over head. I would even question a simple router table for middle school classes. Typically power tools are safer in the hands of more experienced users. Until you have s Sawstop type router you are asking for trouble.

[John Coloccia]

The inverted pin router might be safer, but it's only marginally more useful than a router table with a bearing pattern bit. The real power of the pin router is being able to plunge cut from above and cut a pattern into an irregularly shaped object.

A great example of this is cutting out the F-holes on an archtop guitar. This is difficult to do any other way, yet is absolute child's play with an overarm pin router.

Personally, I'd dump it and replace it with a proper router table, if that's what you want.

[Ryan Baker]

Decent pin routers are getting extremely hard to find these days, and there are plenty of people who would like to find one. If you want a router table, get a real router table. But save the pin router in tact for someone who needs it. You can probably get a pretty good amount of cash for it.