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Be nice to yourself and get the kit with the plunge base, you will be pleased. Being in the construction / cabinet business for more than 30 years I have worn out my share of routers. I still give it a 99.9% dusty bob, rico colo If makita had designed it with a spindle lock for single wrench bit removal they would have scored a perfect 100%. This makita is by far the most comfortable router that I have ever operated. Little to no vibration,and only as noisy as an average finish sander.
I have one in a router table, one in a shop built horizontal mortiser, and another for shop use. This router is an excellent one, soft start, electronic speed control, and very quiet. I highly recommend this router. The only thing I would do different on them would be to have a one wrench blade change system. I have a furniture/millwork/woodie building business and use routers a lot. I own fourteen routers, three of them are this Makita.
After discovering the Makita on/off switch is in a place that requires letting loose of one of the handles to operate, I decided to install it in the table and use the Hitachi for free hand work (thereby requiring more fabrication work on another face plate). Seems unsafe to me to be required to release one hand to turn it on/off.
If you want a router for mounting under a table, this one would be a good choice. Or, maybe the designer has real long thumbs.
I have a Hitachi 3 1/4 hp plunge router that is attached to my Craftsman router table (after fabricating a piece of 1/4 plastic into a face plate to get the thing to fit the darn table). I'm thinking Makita put the switch in that location as a safety feature to keep someone from inadvertantly turning it on when they grab the handles.
I am very pleased with all it's features except for where the switch is located. I wanted a separate router for working off the table so I wouldn't have to pull the Hitachi out which led me to purchase the Makita.
I'm not much on government intervention, but there ought to be a law requiring router face plates to be interchangeable.
Plenty of power, light weight, and quite. Very satisfied with my choice. This is truely a great router. This router is an excellant choice for a first, or second router if you are not ready to purchase one of the 3 1/4 HP routers. Spend the extra money and get the kit with both bases, you won't be dissapointed. Mounted the plunge base in my router table and replaced the retract stop nut with a speed handle, makes adjusting easy and accurate; much more so than the Bosch which I was considering. All in all this router is very balanced and much more user friendly than th PC or Bosch.
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