Howdy all!
Was reading a back issue of Timber Framing (Sept 2001). In an article on tools, there is mention of a Makita housing router. I can find no reference to this online. Are these still available? Where might I find information about these? Etc. Thanks for any information!
dave

999:

To the best of my knowledge, Makita still makes it, but does not import it. Same for the Hitachi. I beleive you can get them on the gray market (illegally imported), but then you will have issues with parts and maintenance. If you call the guys at Timberwolf Tools , they can probably fill you in on the details. I ended up building my own. CB.

daiku,

can you give some info on your home-made housing router?

Gabel

Daiku,
I'm with Gabel....love to have any information that you're willing to share. Do you have any digital photos you might pass along?
thanks,
dave

We were supposed to get a semi-load of timber today, but the truck has suffered a weather delay. So I sent my crew home and had a little time to snap some photos and post a little write-up on the housing router for your enjoyment. CB.

very nice photo essay, CB. Your machine looks quite a bit handier to set up than a chunk of plywood, and in the long run, maybe even cheaper....I don't see provisions for elevation above the timber? We recently cut tapered brace shoulders with a plywood template which was fitted with four bolts to lift the plywood off the beam.... Your machine could be shimmed?

Thanks. Yeah, I suppose it would be easy enough to shim to make a tapered housing. Set up would probably require some trial and error. I always do full housings, so I've never had to try.

multiple tapered housings were the challenge on the Russell Colbath project. Our field expedient worked well. We drew the angle of the taper on two pieces of scrap 1x stock and temporarily screwed (to each side of the timber) the ramps to the timbers so a right angle plunge from the plane of the ramps worked fine. The router had an enlarged base plate to span the stock easily. With a little trial and error setting the plunge depth for hand guided trips up and down the ramps worked fine. Cost pennies, effect priceless. Several of the crew participated. Might even be some pics on the project page (haven't looked lately)

CB,
thanks for the photo essay and taking the time to post it. Truly do appreciate it. Your router setup looks great!
dave

Adding to an old post to thank Daiku once again for the photos!
Nice set up! Loving the search feature of the forum,,, gleaning info daily!
dave

So, I suppose I should follow this up. That routing setup was retired. Those linear bearings are rated for millions of repetitions, and super heavy loads, but their Achilles' heel is sawdust. They kept clogging up. So we use a lot of fixed size templates, like this:



We also built a universal template. I apologize for the large file sizes, but there are some videos that show it in action:

Part 1
Part 2

Here are 2 more videos (much smaller file size) showing the use of a fixed-size template:

Part 1
Part 2

BTW, you need to have quicktime installed to play those last two videos (sure miss the edit feature on the forum).

Thanks for sharing....