[Music] [Applause] now look any power tool that screams like a banshee spits out copious amounts of sawdust i prefer to call it man glitter and has a razor sharp blade that spins at a terrifying 10 to 24 000 revs per minute which can be a little scary for the novice beginner woodworker or handyman and for very good reason because if not used correctly they can inflict a nasty injury which is the last thing that we want g'day folks uncle knackers here and in today's confidence building beginners tutorial we'll be looking at one of the handiest tools in the workshop the handheld router now before we get too excited and start using the router i think a quick router anatomy lesson might be an order as you can see we have two types of router now this little fella is an absolute ripper i love it and i think it's the perfect choice for the beginner or even the more experienced woodworker it's a lightweight battery-operated laminate trimmer now as the name suggests this machine is designed for trimming laminates like cleaning up the laminate edge on a kitchen countertop but it can also be used for smaller general routing work and it's the smaller lighter version of the router which is this beast here that does everything that a laminate trimmer does but has a larger more powerful motor capable of taking a larger shaped bit for bigger jobs that might require a bit more grunt now basically the router is a pretty simple tool now if i turn the machine over this is the base plate that sits nice and flat on the piece of wood that you're working on and this this is the business end this is where you'll find the cutter or the router bit that spins extremely quickly to cut the wood so to avoid a nasty accident make sure you keep your fingers well clear of that at all times remember the carrot and just be aware that whenever you're in the process of changing a cutter or router bit to avoid a potential accident make sure the machine is not plugged in and if the router runs on batteries that the battery is removed speaking about power chords is it just me or does everybody else have somebody sneak into their workshop late at night and bending all the blades on their power chords let me know down below ryder moving right along if i take the base plate off which on my machine is as simple as doing that love it we have the collet which is a steel sleeve that holds the router bit in the router now more on this later as it's a very important part and it's a couple of essential things that you need to know about it now all routers whether they're big or small have a feature called a depth gauge which is this thing here which allows you to alter the depth of your cut now like all machines you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that we have a start and a stop button but there's one very important safety issue you need to be aware of before you turn one of these machines on now the stop start mechanism on my laminate trimmer is particularly good because it's a two-step process first of all we need to unlock the machine by pressing that button there which will then activate the power button and that means that you can't accidentally start the machine which is a really scary thing to do i can push that power button that one there all day long until the cows come home and nothing is going to happen speaking about cows did you hear the one about the two cows grazing away in the paddock one cow turns to the other and he says have you heard about this mad cow disease thing going around it's pretty scary stuff the other cow nods his head chews his cud thoughtfully and he says yeah i heard somebody the other day talking about mad cow's disease it's pretty concerning isn't it [Music] good thing it doesn't affect us ducks [Music] but once the machine is unlocked by pressing that unlocking button the light comes on down below and then all you need to do is to press the start button this one here and you're good to go [Applause] now on the other hand if you have an older router like i have here most likely it'll come with a stock standard off on switch and if that's the case before you plug the machine in do a double check and make sure the switch is turned off to avoid it starting while you're not fully in control [Music] [Applause] now trust me you don't want that to happen but just in case it accidentally does put it this way you may need a change of underwear [Music] okay having covered the basic anatomy of the router let's now have a look at one of the most common questions which is how to change a router bit now with the smaller laminate trimmer the first thing we need to do for safety reasons is remove that battery like that we don't want any unnecessary accidents and then remove the base plate for easier access to the locking nut and the collet now to insert or change your route a bit you need to lock that shaft in place and stop it from spinning and to help you do that all machines will come with a couple of spanners one will lock onto the shaft and hold it in place whilst the other one by turning it anti-clockwise we'll loosen the nut and by turning it clockwise it'll tighten the nut now a really cool feature that some of these smaller laminate trimmers have is that they have the ability to be able to lock that shaft by simply engaging a lever on the side over here so if you watch this when i press this button a lever comes out and hits up against the shaft so all you need to do is to line that hole up with our lever engage it that'll lock the shaft in place and then just simply with your wrench or spanner loosen or tighten that nut and you're good to go and that will do away with the need for having two spanners how cool is that now to install her out a bit it's really easy just make sure that the locking nut is nice and loose like it is there and then insert the router bit all the way in just like that and then bring it back about 1 8 of an inch this allows the collet which is this cone-shaped steel sleeve here that has splits in it to fully tighten around the bit and then as i showed you earlier lock off that shaft and then tighten that locking nut with your hands and finish it off with your wrench or spanner in a clockwise direction and you're done it's as simple as that and to remove the bit do the same thing lock off that shaft and then loosen that nut in an anti-clockwise direction just like that remove the bit and bob's your uncle too easy since we're talking about router bits and collets there's a couple of important things you need to know before going out and buying your brand spanking new route a bit now as you can see here router bits come in two different sizes being quarter inch and half inch and that relates to the size of the diameter of the shaft on the bit this one here is a quarter inch bit and the larger one is a half inch bit now as we discussed earlier the router bit fits inside the collet just like that but you need to be aware that different size routers have diffe
