If you have to loosen a tight router collet, you could put your whole body into it and risk busting your knuckles, but there’s a better way.
John Ross from Bethel, Conn., has figured out a very simple technique for making a really controlled loosening twist on a router collet. Here it is.
A lot of people will put both hands into it and they’ll push the wrenches away from each other. If you put your whole body into this when the collet is really tight, when it gives way it’s hard to stop your hands from hitting something. a better way to do this is to move the outer wrench to the other side of the inboard wrench so that the wrenches are moving toward one another. This allows you to squeeze them together, the same way you would grip a pair of pliers, and loosen or tighten the collet with just one hand. Totally in control.
Thank you, John. that’s a great tip.
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Chuck,
You’ve got me scratching my head. I’ve always done it John’s way and can’t imagine using the “How not to do it” technique. Once again you’ve provided a valuable service to us knuckleheads out here.
This will definitely help. Usually I just clamp on a pair of vise grips and then turn the router on.
Yea....that's the way auto mechanics learn early on. When you turn wrenches for a living...you learn that trick early on.....Otherwise you live with busted knuckles.
Easiest solution is to buy one of the many routers out there that don't require two wrenches to do the job; Triton & Festool spring to mind since I have them.