Harbor Freight Router? Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Way late to the party, but when I bought my first router, I bought a PC 690 kit, with both a fixed and plunge base. I also bought a ryobi 18v cordless . I love my 690... The ryobi is fine as a trim router.

Kevin Sadaj said:

Thank you, gentlemen! CPO Outlets is my new "favorite" store. I've been wanting a Porter Cable router. When it arrives in the mail, what will I tell me wife???? Say I won it?

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just remember kevin, there are three prices that you will pay, the price you actually paid, the price you tell the wife you paid, and the price you will pay when she finds out what you did pay!

Paul Douglass said:

Is Porter-Cable really the original Porter Cable?

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The original Porter Cable was purchased by Rockwell around 1960. The name was phased out and through the 60's and 70's there were no Porter Cable tools. In the early 80's Rockwell sold off their tool division and the Porter Cable and Delta names were revived and that's the tools everyone knows now. PC was purchased by Black and Decker around 2001. As for Dewalt, there has never been a Dewalt tool in the familiar yellow that wasn't a Black and Decker. B&D has owned the Dewalt name since 1960. The name was used exclusively for radial saws until the late 80's when B&D got out of the RAS business. B&D had a line of industrial tools that were really good quality tools but they had a hard time selling them under the B&D name. In a marketing move that is used now as a teaching tool, they took the industrial line, rebranded them as Dewalt, and the rest, as they say, is history. Tools that they couldn't sell under their own name suddenly became the standard that other tools were judged by