I’ve read in another thread here that there may be a problem with the spindle lock failing on the Makita RT0701C router. I did a quick Google search and the only thing I found was one guy that broke his by whacking on the spindle wrench with another tool in an effort to unstick the collet nut.
I looked at mine and it looks pretty robust to me, I don’t get the impression that it is going to break anytime soon. So, has anyone actually broken theirs, or is this all anecdotal?
If you don’t use two wrenches to tighten your Colette, it can and will break.
I had a Makita on my SO2 for year and it never broke - I guess I occasionally used two wrenches, but certainly not often. I still do the final tightening with a single wrench.
@Vader - curious, is the locking post aluminum or something more fragile?
Yes, and not very thick.
I only use the built in shaft lock to hand tighten the collet. I’ve never trusted the cast-in shaft locks on any of my routers. 2 wrench method is the way to go for me.
No, the spindle lock will not fail. It’s made of high carbon steel and is SPECIFICALLY engineered to be used to remove the collet nut. Yes it can break if you are hitting it with something, high carbon steel is harder and stronger but the trade off is that it becomes more brittle, so sudden impacts may cause it to break (same concept as solid carbide, strong and hard but extremely brittle). so no don’t use a hammer, the wrench is enough.
They simply kept the option to use two wrenches for those among us who for whatever reason don’t trust the spindle lock, it’s old school technology but they decided to keep it because it appeals to a wider variety of consumers which equals more sales.
But to each their own ! as long as it holds the bit were all laughing !
So no first hand accounts of failure then? For my part, I’ve been using the spindle locks on a DeWalt trim router, a Ridgid cordless trim router and a really old Skil plunge router for years with no failures. But I tend to baby my stuff. I plan to use it on the Makita too. If it ever breaks, I’ll post about it here.
Mine just broke yesterday and came across this thread when searching the problem. Collet got stuck and tried to use some force to get it to budge and the lock split in half. Even using two wrenches, I can’t get the collet to unlock…
Just how tight are you tightening the collet nut? Should be just snug, no reason to overtighten it.
I didn’t think I tighten ed it any tighter than I do my two other routers. I obviously did izvertighten it though. Can’t get it to budge with two wrenches. Any ideas?
Wow, not really. Very unusual for it to tighten up that much. Maybe it ran hot and the wood dust sort of fused the nut on to the spindle (pure speculation on my part). I think I would remove the router from the machine & take it to the bench to work on to minimize stresses placed on the Z axis. Maybe hit it with some penetrating oil & see if that helps.
Keep us posted, and good luck with it!
Once you have it off the OneFinity, you could put a little heat on the collet with a torch or hot air gun. That should get it to expand enough so you can loosen it with the wrenches.
I should add to be careful not to heat up the rest of the router. Best if you can wrap it in some welder’s cloth if you can get some.
Tried the heat trick, tried the hammer tapping trick, even went to WD40 after neither of those worked. Still can’t get it loose. Ended up having to just buy a new router unfortunately.
Lessons learned: don’t over tighten. I’m sure since the router is secured (like a router table) I applied too much force when I tightened.
Take out your router bits when finished. Don’t let them sit in the router for days after you’ve finished.
Blow out the CNC/router after each use with compressed air. When I did the hammer taps, before the heat, a ton of saw dust fell out of the collet.
I’m sure there are more but I’m hoping being more conscious about these things will make this problem never happen again…
Conventional wisdom I was taught on tightening is to squeeze both wrenches in one hand, not a gorilla grip either, and let the collet do the work. If your using the collet lock, like I do on the beefier one in my router table, I tighten using just my fingers to pull the wrench with my thumb on the table so I am. not gripping the wrench but rather pulling.
When my makita was new, I had a hard time getting bits out. I could tsk the nut off, and the inner collet and bit would be stuck. I made sure the end of the bit was visible in the hole for the lock and used a small, strong screw driver to lever against the end of the bit. With use, that’s is no longer a problem, but it was super frustrating in the beginning.