|
As other reviewers have mentioned, the top on mine is far from flat. Unfortunately, i had mine more than a year before i noticed the problem ( i'm just an occasional woodworker), and now i'm stuck with it. There is more than 1/16 inch valley in the middle - making accurate routing impossible.
I"ve since learned that Bosch is now offering the RA1185 plastic plate instead. In the manual for this table it clearly states you mustorder RA1186 Router Adapter Plate (which is essentially a drill-able blank). Sure enough, none of the MULTITUDE of holes on the included adapter plate match neither my Triton nor anmuch older Dayton router. I'm rating this as low as I can because Bosch is sellingkit that is not supported. It was approximately 1/16 or perhaps a bit moreof warp in one diagonal of the table. I forgot to mention in my first pass of this review that the table itself did have some warp as mentioned by much earlier reviews. That said, there is ZERO excuse for Bosch not supplying this plate. I've yet to find one.
Their customer service person told me 'we never made any of those plates'. I knew when I ordered the table I may well have to get the OPTIONAL plate. Total cost was about 100 more but I'm far happier.Bosch just lost a customer for life.THis is not a company to trust. I finally heard back from Bosch after writing them about the RA1186 plate and how to get one.
Anyone buying this table if you have any doubt if your router would fit I'd look elsewhere. Editing this post. Amazon took my table back and I got a full refund. P.S.
I've since bought a Rockler top and accessories. If they dont' support the product they can not be trusted. You have been warned. So, whatever defect they had a couple years ago is still in the manufacture of the table.
AMazon gets a solid 5 from me as they took it back despite me trashing the original box (I hadexplained to them the situation about the accessory plate not being available). I wanted to mount a Triton 3 1/4 HP router to this. I"ve looked all over the netfor this optional adapter plate. I made a serious error in purchasing this item.
Where I failed is notresearching ahead to discover said plate does not exist. Based on reviews of the optional RA1185 plate , which is some sort of plastic, it flexes. YEs, I can try to drill some holes and I will howeverthanks to the MANY holes already in the included adapterplate one of the holes will be badly malformed as I can't find a clean area on the included plate to make 4 freshclean holes. Amazon paid shipping on return.
(Edit below I ended up not drilling the plate.). NEVER. Good luck. I used two different squares to measure this and it was repeatable measurement.
In spite of that, I'm glad we bought it. We've used our router with the under-router table once. It made it an easy job to router the window sills. I think it is worth the price, but we will rig some other way of turning it off and on. But, everyone who griped about the switch was right; the on/off switch is a piece of junk.
As many reviewers have said, this is a great table for the money, and I look forward to using it. My choices were to drill holes in the faceplate (to custom fit the plate to my router), return the table, or find a new router. I bought the RA1181 as a housing for my Craftsman 17543 combo router kit. None particularly pleasant. [i also bought the RA1190 table on which to mount the RA1181]. Well, I don't know what they mean by 'most', but it sure doesn't include the 17543. despite what the manual says, the insert plate is incompatible with my craftsman 17543.
Assembly of the table was a breeze, and the bench top and fence are impressive for the cost. However. Thus, while I think the table as a product is probably worth 5 stars, I'm docking it one star for slightly misleading compatibility statements. I found this especially irksome since prior to buying the table, I looked into compatibility issues and found that Bosch states that the RA1181 is compatible "with most 1/2" collet Craftsman routers".
Just put my bosch RA1181 router table together, from the table upwards seems to be heavy duty and well engineered was a little disapointed with the plastic base, would have been better if it was at least thicker material. I think I am going to like this set up just fine. also the on/off switch is mickey mouse, I built a mobile stand for mine and installed a good on/off switch on front corner so it can be turned off with your knee or a slap of your hand.
|