I use my router alot when making hutches for my wife. I mainly use flush and round over bits which run on bearings, that's where they tend to fail. The blades still seem sharp but the bearings disintegrate, us it possible to buy the bearings? I must admit I do tend to buy cheap bits from China etc because the decent ones here are so expensive. I bought a set from Aldi a few days ago and they supply u with an Allen key so you can replace the bearings but don't supply spares. Are they available?
Hang on, you keep your wife in a hutch? But more seriously, what do the bearings look like? Can't quite picture it in my head.
Lol as I typed it I knew someone would say that you can see the bearing here PS my wife has a kennel not a hutch I'm not a barbarian.
This may sound like a silly question but with non-professional tools, it's quite pertinent.. are you letting the bits do the work? What I mean by that is you're not forcing the router along the work putting too much lateral load on the shaft and bearing?
If you apply too much lateral force, 6mm ply is more than enough to make those bearings scream. The only reason I ask is that my router is a hand-me-down from my old man, which I've had for about 10 years and I've no idea how long he had it before me - not a single bearing needed replacing so far but I was always constantly reminded to let the tooling do the work. You might have just been really unlucky!
That's the point though, the bearing isn't doing any work really, it's just a guide, the blade is doing the work, I can feel with the cheap bits that the bearings are notchy but I'm loathed to spend £13 quid a bit but if they last much longer then maybe that's the answer.
https://www.axminster.co.uk/axcaliber-router-cutter-bearings-ax809803 There we go. I think the one you want is 12.7x 4.76mm because that gives you the 1/4" internal diameter to fit your shank.
https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/BEARING-OPTIONS-R188-BEARINGS-SIZE-1-2-X-1-4-X-3-16-/221139534422 How about that? https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fidget-Spi...396841?hash=item4b34fac4e9:g:8m4AAOSwBp9aYL0V Or that?
I know the router bits my old man uses for Guitar building all have spare bearings to buy. That said - good bits come with good bearings. Good bearings cost a bit. The StewMac tools my dad uses are around 25-30USD a bit, 6-7USD a bearing.
Ooh that's better on the price, must measure up and then buy one of those if they are the right size.
I have bought replacement bearings from www.bearingboys.co.uk in the past, now all my cutters come from www.wealdentool.com, they carry all the spares for their bits, they're expensive, but cheap router bits are a total waste of time at least for me. Much easy to buy individual quality bits over a set where the majority of them rarely get used imo.
Buying a set is a bit pointless but they were cheap and for what I use them for I'm sure ill get my moneys worth out of them, mind you my router came with approx. ten bits and I reckon 6 or 7 of them have never been used and still have the rubber molded over the blades. I really only use round over, flush and rebate bits anyway so maybe at some point I'll buy myself some decent ones. I'm kind of buying them as disposable items really. I've probably thrown perfectly good bits away just because the bearings prematurely disintegrated.
The bearings will likely have a code stamped into the seal that you can google and buy. I too know the frustration of having a bearing fail and feeling the router slice its way into the workpiece at 20,000 RPM
