1400 Festool Router

[rudy1965]

I have a Festool 1400 Router mounted in my Festool Router table.  I have been buying Sommerfeld Router bits and some of them are 2 piece sets, so after you run one of them the other is set to match the 1st one.  Mark Sommerfeld  said the best way to achieve the right setting is to install a rubber grommet into the bottom of the collar to assure the right height each time you put a new router bit in the router.  I know you are supposed to raise the router bit a little off the bottom so it is free spinning, and this grommet is supposed to do that and give you the same setting each time.  Do you recommend doing this?

 

[greg mann]

The rubber grommet he recommends is a common sink washer. (well, maybe not so common these days.) it does work. The concept here is that the bottom of the router cavity is not precision ground, and a router bit shaft may not sit perfectly if inserted all of the way in. I suppose that is true, and the grommet is not a bad idea. Try it out and you will find it wrks quite well.

The notion that bottoming out a shank will result in the collet not tightening properly is pretty muc overstated in my opinion. In metalworking, many collet based toolholders have an adjustable screw in the bottom to insert a tool against to not allow the tool to draw down any further when it is tightened. This is to facilitate setting tool lengths to an exact height, which is sometimes desirable. It has no negative impact on the collet's ability to grip the tool accurately ot tightly.