Deciding on the finer points of a budget Router table, possibly a WorkBee

[JAZZCNC]

Hi,

Ok, well let me say first of all that while you think you won't use it often the reality will be more like it's never off.!! . . . The reason being that these machines are so versatile you'll find uses for it you didn't realize you had and it will open avenues for work you never dreamt about.

I build machines for both hobby and business users and this happens in 99.9% of cases. Often the machines are very rarely used for the original purpose because other work is found for them.

Now, this is the bit your not going to like.! . . . None of those cheaper machines are worth the money even if for hobby use, but when it comes to business usage it would be a massive mistake to buy one.
While some nice work can be done with them it requires very low cutting feeds and shallow depths of cut etc and takes forever. Push them and you'll spend more time fixing and adjusting them than you will be cutting. They simply cannot handle cutting correctly with reasonable speed n feeds for any length of time and they will let you down and waste your money with wrecked work.

When running a business this is the last thing you want, you can also bet your house on it they will fail when you are flat out busy or on a tight deadline.

Trust my experience and don't take this route if your thinking to use for business, in fact, I wouldn't recommend for hobby use and suggest build or have one built, but 100% don't buy for business use. Spend a little more get the right tool and it will pay back 10 fold.

[Smiffy]

@jazzcnc I hear what you are saying, but this isn't my core business and I have absolutely no intention of promoting it as a service, I just don't need to.
What I need to do is get away from sub contracting my simple cutting requirements. I need to cut about 30 panels over the next 18 months, and the savings over sub contract will pay for this 2-3 times over. There will be odd additional panels, but I'm not looking to expand on my current requirements.

Cutting time isn't an issue, it can take all day and go round the cut twice if it needs to, it'll be in a room on its own so even noise is really an issue! I can even live with slack tolerances!

Don't focus on the "business" bit, I have a parkside compressor, a black & decker jigsaw and a Ryobi drill. They all survive the limited, lightweight work I throw at them. This table only needs to achieve the same.

Commercial grade, I just can't justify the cost at this time, unless I'm mistaken on relative costs?