This is the type of product I love to review...a supper cost-effective product. I'm an experienced craftsman, but not a finish woodworker, so when I needed to significantly modify my favorite Oak TV cabinet in our living room to make it fit a new wide-screen TV, I had to temporarily enter into the world of routers and router bits. I had several jobs to do: round a four-foot portion of the cabinet edge with a 3/8" roundover bit, flush trim some cuts with a flushtrim bit, mortis out an exposed plywood edge with a mortising bit, cut out holes for cooling fans using a cooling-fan template and a flushtrim bit, cut off the edge of a cabinet door and reshape it with an ogee bit combined with two other bits, and chamfer the edge of a new cabinet partition. I ended up buying a Porter-Cable 7310 trim router Porter-Cable 7310 5.6 Amp 3/4-Horsepower Laminate Trim Router(see separate review) and this set of router bits.
To buy separate top-of-the-line bits could have cost hundreds of dollars...instead I got 24 bits for $[...]...less than 2 bucks a piece...and they worked great! Since I didn't know anything about routing when I started, having a complete set of bits was a great way to understand the large number of tasks that can be accomplished with a router and the types of bits designed for each. I used about eight bits in total. I don't know what separates a good bit from a bad one, probably material quality, perhaps bearings and balance. Here's my experience:
O All the bits seemed perfectly balanced...thus the router (a small trim router) ran smooth and was easy to handle.
O All the bits seemed very sharp and all have carbide cutting edges that did a great job.
O I inadvertently cut through a couple of nails that were hidden below the cabinet surface...no bad effects...the bit just ate the nails with no signs of chipping or dulling of the cutting edge
O The one minor problem I had is that the bearing on my flush cut bit came off (unscrewed) while starting a cut after a couple of days of use...took two days to find the parts on the shop floor. However, I quickly substituted the same size bearing off of another bit in the set. Lesson learned: check the tightness of the bearing screw before using the bearing bits...also nice to have those back-up bits.
Bottom Line...the set was superb for the one-time job that I had...and will probably serve me well into the future. And, it comes in a very nice wood chest. Highly recommended!
Get more detail about Yukon Tool YTRB24 24-Piece Router Bit Set.
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