This article is from the Woodworking FAQ Collection 4, by multiple authors.
From: phil@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Phil Ritchey)
Date: 21 Jul 88 21:04:41 GMT
I started out buying craftsman power tools, in fact I have a
whole garage full of them. I will never buy another. After
a lot of problems, I tried other brands, and will never go
back. The one exception is my sears router. I have no
complaints yet. However, I do know of a very serious
design flaw with the Sears routers, I fear the day when
mine breaks. The problem is that the cooling fan is made
of a stamped piece of sheet metal. This puts high stress
on the weakest part of the fin where it attaches to the
hub. Most good routers have a molded fan. The problem
with the Sears is that when the fan lets go, it destroys
the router beyond repair. This is especially a problem
when the router is mounted upsidedown in a table. Wood
chips fall into the blade spinning at 33,000 RPM and BOOM!
There have been a lot of reports of this happening.
WOODSMITH magazine (THE BEST WOOKWORKING magazine out)
recently had an article on which routers to buy. I believe
they were all under $100. The Sears were rated unacceptable
for the fan problem. I would recommend buying Japanese, or
Porter Cable, Milwalkee, or Delta.
 
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