Don't walk away

[Kryptik]

'tis the weeks before Christmas, and 12 - 16 hour days at the Shark and router table are the norm to try and keep up with the orders, with a periodic vacuum and lube to keep the Shark happy and quiet being all that is needed.
After realising that I hadn't eaten all day, I ducked down to Macca's with my daughter for a Quarter Pounder and whatever the no meat vege bun is that she eats, no more than 10 minutes.
I had left the Shark routing a profile into the top of a small bed head, and all was quiet when I got home except for the air that I use for cooling...
The work piece had shifted and rotated 90 degrees up the table,having grown a new 6.3mm slot where there wasn't meant to be one, the 3mm sacrificial board was hanging over the edge, there was apparently no 6.3mm spiral upcut bit in the router, which turned out to be the case on closer inspection, I at least expected to find a stub... and 2 of the blue channel base pieces had a shiny new groove gouged out of them.
A search of the workshop found the 2 pieces of my bit, the search for the collet, which I couldn't for the life of me work out how it had gotten past the lock nut on the Colt proved fruitless until I realised it had jammed itself up the shaft of the router.
Fortunately in this instance, this has only cost me a common carbide bit, and some time to remove, clean up and invert the 2 damaged base sections, which also gives the opportunity to properly clean and lube the "Y" screw.
It could have been far worse.
I'm not entirely sure what happened, except that I wasn't there to punch the E Stop at the first signs that the wheels were falling off. Something that won't happen again.
25 years in maintenance engineering, I so should have known better, complacency can be lethal.
Please be alert. The world can always use more lerts

[baby15]

what are you lubing screws with

[CountryWoodCrafts]

I have been lucky. . .my clamp malfunctions have been while I was in the room. . amazing how a piece of material laying flat can rise up to a 45 degree angle and the bit just ram right through it as the gantry flexes to weird contortions . . . all happening before I can even think of hitting the red button. . . I too am thankful that after running quite a few items after it seems to have escaped damage.

[saramos]

One of the first times I tried to cut a bunch of parts out of a sheet, I didn't use tabs. The material was 3/8" MDF, and when the 3rd part cut free, it caused the bit to jam and throw the rest of the project off, and of course damaged that part. I learned an important lesson on being present when cutting a new project, and if you are cutting all the way through the material, use tabs!

Scott

[DRMRDR]

I have found that the colt router has a weak collet to hold the bits. In three months I went through 3 collets and the rockler rep refuses to warrenty them any more. I changed over to the porter cable router and have not worn out a collet yet. If you look at the two collect you can see the porter cable is a lot beafer collet. You can buy a aftermarket collet that is stronger for the colt, but I decided to go with porter cable because the router has more power. I have gone through two colt routers also. The colt collet loses it grip with constant bit changing and then lets the bit slip out while cutting. At least that is what happened to me.
Dave

[Kryptik]

I'm pretty sure this is what was responsible for my mess now.
I couldn't get a new collet that day to replace the damaged one, so I ordered one and spent $99.00 on a Ryobi EVT400K trimming router as its collet fitted the Colt beautifully. ( A lot of work was waiting, I had just opened the shop)
When the colt collet came in, I fitted it to the Colt, and put the Ryobi one back where it came from. This decision lasted about 30 seconds when I put the next bit in, and realised the Ryobi collet was a much better fit and quality than the Bosch one. Go figure...
The bits "feel" more secure, my perception is that the Bosch is running quieter as well. The finish is also more..engineered..the Bosch looks like something chromed out of a $30.00 Chinese router..
Unfortunately, I have had a bit of a look on line, and it appears that the DeWalt 611 is not available in Oz, time to check the other 240VAC countries tomorrow...

[Larry Stobbs]

Heres a few to add about not walking away. I use the Colt Router and as most of you have learned, dont run it full speed as it burns it out for some reason, but even running at a lower speed (and I run mine all the time), there is the problem of dust and contaminates geting into the motor and mine finally got enough small dust particles sucked in that it actually got the router very "hot". It was still running when caught it and was doing a good job, but you could smell the burnt odor and when it finished its run, I went to shut it off and it became apparent I needed to get it off the machine quick.

Bought a new Colt to replace that one with a month ago and was running a program tonight and the x-axis motor has apparently bit the dust ($50) so it just ran back and forth on two axis instead of three, took me a minute to figure out what was going on. I have to say, if you knew how much stuff I cut on my Shark, its surprisong I havent had something break before, tough little machines.

As far as the comments on the collets, The Colt has a crappy collet, I ordered a collet from precisebits.com (think & tinker) and its anice set up for the Colt router