Art Mulder
12-23-2007, 6:48 PM
A Tale Of Two Routers...
Here are two routers:
77777
On the right is a very old router. It is a Rockwell router that my Dad gave me 13 or so years ago. He was retired from being a finishing carpenter and didn't use it much anymore. It had seen many years of regular use prior to that, mostly excavating door hinge mortises, if I recall. It has got to be at least 25-30 years old. It is a model 1501 base and model 1502 motor, made in Pittsburgh PA. (SN 132283, in case anyone knows how to look up the exact age of it.)
On the left is a brand new router. It is a Porter Cable 690 -- model 690LR, with a 6902 motor, made in Mexico. I picked it up from Amazon last month when they had that crazy price of $96 for a router, with a free Random Orbit Sander, plus free shipping.
They look pretty similar, eh?
I had the old Rockwell mounted in a basic router table (Pat Warner inspired basic MDF top, with the router base screwed directly to the top.
It works fine. The only reason I wanted a new one was that it only has a 1/4" collet.
I expected these routers to be fairly similar. After all, Rockwell is, somehow, a corporate "ancestor" of Porter-Cable. And the 690 sure looked pretty similar in the advertisements. As well, I've read in many places how the 690 router is an "old workhorse" that has been around for ages virtually unchanged.
But I had no idea just how similar these things were until I got the two of them sitting side by side on the bench. Just out of curiousity, before removing the rockwell base from the router table, I tried sliding in the PC690 motor. It fit like a glove. I even briefly considered just leaving the old base in place. When I removed the old base, I compared, and the mounting screws are in the exact same place, and have the exact same threads. Other than some age and scuff marks, the black (bakelite?) baseplates of these two routers were indistinguishable.
Wow. This is probably one of those "why mess with a good thing" situations.
Here are two routers:
77777
On the right is a very old router. It is a Rockwell router that my Dad gave me 13 or so years ago. He was retired from being a finishing carpenter and didn't use it much anymore. It had seen many years of regular use prior to that, mostly excavating door hinge mortises, if I recall. It has got to be at least 25-30 years old. It is a model 1501 base and model 1502 motor, made in Pittsburgh PA. (SN 132283, in case anyone knows how to look up the exact age of it.)
On the left is a brand new router. It is a Porter Cable 690 -- model 690LR, with a 6902 motor, made in Mexico. I picked it up from Amazon last month when they had that crazy price of $96 for a router, with a free Random Orbit Sander, plus free shipping.
They look pretty similar, eh?
I had the old Rockwell mounted in a basic router table (Pat Warner inspired basic MDF top, with the router base screwed directly to the top.
It works fine. The only reason I wanted a new one was that it only has a 1/4" collet.
I expected these routers to be fairly similar. After all, Rockwell is, somehow, a corporate "ancestor" of Porter-Cable. And the 690 sure looked pretty similar in the advertisements. As well, I've read in many places how the 690 router is an "old workhorse" that has been around for ages virtually unchanged.
But I had no idea just how similar these things were until I got the two of them sitting side by side on the bench. Just out of curiousity, before removing the rockwell base from the router table, I tried sliding in the PC690 motor. It fit like a glove. I even briefly considered just leaving the old base in place. When I removed the old base, I compared, and the mounting screws are in the exact same place, and have the exact same threads. Other than some age and scuff marks, the black (bakelite?) baseplates of these two routers were indistinguishable.
Wow. This is probably one of those "why mess with a good thing" situations.