Rob Keeble
Member
- Messages
- 12,633
- Location
- GTA Ontario Canada
Ok so i am getting ready to pull the trigger on a decent router lift.
I have tried the cheap solution now with my new Milwaukee router i plan on going uptown.
I need some input. Thought i had decided but got the good old procrastination and fear of having buyers remorse hit me after doing some reasearch and hearing other views. Wish i had not.
So....
I was ready to pull the trigger on the Kreg lift which is essentially the Woodpeckers Prl lift.
Except there is a difference to the ones that many of you have that use a crank handle to raise or lower it. And this is where my concern comes in.
The new one has a rod you insert turn and it releases the lift which you then can raise of lower to whereever. Then when you have fitted your bit you can either get it close to where you want it with the same rod or you can use the thumbwheel for fine adjust.
Here is where i am concerned and desire some feedback from someone who has a woodpecker with the thumbwheel or similar unit made by Woodpecker for Incra or Kreg.
Apparently when one has a router in it and there is no weight on the lift the thumbwheel is fine for small fine tuning but not that easy or comfortable for large movement given its 1/16th of inch per turn.
So this got me to looking at Jessem and their Mast R lift 2 .
It seems to have several features over the Woodpecker or its private label versions. It gets one back to a crank handle like the early Prl 2 Woodpeckers had. Still 1/16 per turn but its a nice top crank handle. The neat thing is also where in the Kreg/Incra/Woodpecker Prl versions with the thumbwheel the locking of the thumbwheel is achieved using a small allen key, and there is no defined locked point it is feel based. The Jessem makes use of the same crank handle to lock the height adjust but also has a illustrated defined locked point. So you know you have locked it and not over tightened a allen key.
Price is not an issue despite me being frugal by that i dont mean i am shelling out for a full table etc. But the difference between these various lifts is not big enough to have it steer my thoughts. Hence my current dilema.
The other item which i dont quiet see as a huge benefit but is something to consider is the Jessem unit has a clamping block that allows a wide variety of routers to be fitted with the same adaptor blocks. In the case of the Woodpecker version you have to get the lift (no matter whose label) with the appropriate blocks to fit your router. So if you have a dead router one day and wish to change over to keep going you aint gonna do that without delay in which case you might well get your router fixed rather than change. It aint a biggie to me since i plan on dedicating my Milwaukee to the router lift and table.
So anyone out there able to give me some input related to the two options i have mentioned. I am pretty much set on these two manufacturers.
LV stocks both lifts so i dont have to deal with shipping. Can even get a local Incra but i like the idea of the plastic insert plates rather than metal held in my magnets unless someone has other ideas of the Incra setup that make it better.
Thanks for any input and wisdom. I know we have lift debates all the time and did take loads of time yesterday to search our forum but my points were never answered in the threads i found.
I have tried the cheap solution now with my new Milwaukee router i plan on going uptown.
I need some input. Thought i had decided but got the good old procrastination and fear of having buyers remorse hit me after doing some reasearch and hearing other views. Wish i had not.
So....
I was ready to pull the trigger on the Kreg lift which is essentially the Woodpeckers Prl lift.
Except there is a difference to the ones that many of you have that use a crank handle to raise or lower it. And this is where my concern comes in.
The new one has a rod you insert turn and it releases the lift which you then can raise of lower to whereever. Then when you have fitted your bit you can either get it close to where you want it with the same rod or you can use the thumbwheel for fine adjust.
Here is where i am concerned and desire some feedback from someone who has a woodpecker with the thumbwheel or similar unit made by Woodpecker for Incra or Kreg.
Apparently when one has a router in it and there is no weight on the lift the thumbwheel is fine for small fine tuning but not that easy or comfortable for large movement given its 1/16th of inch per turn.
So this got me to looking at Jessem and their Mast R lift 2 .
It seems to have several features over the Woodpecker or its private label versions. It gets one back to a crank handle like the early Prl 2 Woodpeckers had. Still 1/16 per turn but its a nice top crank handle. The neat thing is also where in the Kreg/Incra/Woodpecker Prl versions with the thumbwheel the locking of the thumbwheel is achieved using a small allen key, and there is no defined locked point it is feel based. The Jessem makes use of the same crank handle to lock the height adjust but also has a illustrated defined locked point. So you know you have locked it and not over tightened a allen key.
Price is not an issue despite me being frugal by that i dont mean i am shelling out for a full table etc. But the difference between these various lifts is not big enough to have it steer my thoughts. Hence my current dilema.
The other item which i dont quiet see as a huge benefit but is something to consider is the Jessem unit has a clamping block that allows a wide variety of routers to be fitted with the same adaptor blocks. In the case of the Woodpecker version you have to get the lift (no matter whose label) with the appropriate blocks to fit your router. So if you have a dead router one day and wish to change over to keep going you aint gonna do that without delay in which case you might well get your router fixed rather than change. It aint a biggie to me since i plan on dedicating my Milwaukee to the router lift and table.
So anyone out there able to give me some input related to the two options i have mentioned. I am pretty much set on these two manufacturers.
LV stocks both lifts so i dont have to deal with shipping. Can even get a local Incra but i like the idea of the plastic insert plates rather than metal held in my magnets unless someone has other ideas of the Incra setup that make it better.
Thanks for any input and wisdom. I know we have lift debates all the time and did take loads of time yesterday to search our forum but my points were never answered in the threads i found.