# Can I borrow a router?



## istracpsboss (Sep 14, 2008)

I had a phone call this morning from someone who has been very helpful in the past, asking if he could borrow a router. I wasn't very keen and asked some questions. I thought that if pushed, he could borrow the Ryobi 2100

He was wanting to do stopped dadoes 10mm deep x 20mm wide for a massive oak bookcase. It turned out that he had never used a router before. The alarm bells really started to ring when he said he knew how to use an angle grinder. He assured me that he'd wear goggles, although just how much they would do him if he ran a large cutter into oak in the wrong direction and at the wrong speed, feed speed and cutting depth is debatable !

Apart from the highly likely damage to my router, albeit far from my best one, in a country where I'd never be able to get it repaired, the responsibility for letting someone loose who had no previous experience and could predictably injure themselves was just too much. He wanted cutters too.

I know we all have to start somewhere, but jumping in at the deep end with a 2HP router is not an option. What really frightened me was his cavalier attitude to the safety aspect of using a powerful precision tool without expecting to have to carefully study how to use it first. He just thought he could pick it up and use it straight off like a power drill or angle grinder.

Am I being difficult?

Cheers

Peter:wacko:


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi Peter

YES  ,,,, you could have got a new router out the loan. LOL LOL

Give 10 men a job to do and they will all do it different. LOL


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istracpsboss said:


> I had a phone call this morning from someone who has been very helpful in the past, asking if he could borrow a router. I wasn't very keen and asked some questions. I thought that if pushed, he could borrow the Ryobi 2100
> 
> He was wanting to do stopped dadoes 10mm deep x 20mm wide for a massive oak bookcase. It turned out that he had never used a router before. The alarm bells really started to ring when he said he knew how to use an angle grinder. He assured me that he'd wear goggles, although just how much they would do him if he ran a large cutter into oak in the wrong direction and at the wrong speed, feed speed and cutting depth is debatable !
> 
> ...


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## Mike (Nov 22, 2004)

Peter, someone who has never used a router before is a potential accident waiting to happen. I do not loan out my tools, period. If you want to be a good guy why not offer to help him with the project? If that is not practical I would at least require him to work with you in your shop and learn about using the router. There are too many important things to know and with out learning them first his project will not turn out well anyways.


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

I agree with Mike. You may have done him a favor by refusing to let him borrow the router. I would also want to see him work at close range before I would consider the loan.


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## gav (Oct 12, 2009)

You're not being difficult Peter, especially if the guys closest experience with a power tool is an angle grinder !!
Probably he'll label you as 'bahati Englez' though.
If you like the guy, and have the time, I would suggest you offer to show him how to do the job correctly.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

If he is a friend and you want to keep him as a friend don't loan the router unless you go with it. There are a few things I don't loan out chainsaws and routers are a couple of them, just too dangerous with long reaching consequences.


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## TheOakDude (Oct 11, 2011)

No way, you are not being difficult, just responsible. I have had a similar experience with selling a hang glider. There is for sure a responsibility to be sure that the person will not kill/injure themselves. I ended up refusing to sell my glider, even for well over the odds until he had done his Competent pilot training. Needless to say he never did. But at least I wasnt responsible for some really negative headlines to the sport.
Sometimes it is difficult. Explain your decision making process to him and he should understand.


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## TheOakDude (Oct 11, 2011)

Peter,
show him the pictures and let him make up his own mind as to whether you are being a pain or a friend.


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## Mark (Aug 4, 2004)

Mike said:


> Peter, someone who has never used a router before is a potential accident waiting to happen. I do not loan out my tools, period. If you want to be a good guy why not offer to help him with the project? If that is not practical I would at least require him to work with you in your shop and learn about using the router. There are too many important things to know and with out learning them first his project will not turn out well anyways.


Very well said. There are hundreds of things that can go wrong when someone inexperienced gets their hands on a power tool. I like your advice on this matter


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## rweerstra (Feb 9, 2010)

*A story to support your position*

I agree, I say come to my shop and I will show you how.....I sold a sailboat to a guy a number of years ago. He refused to wear a life jacket when I was to take him on a demo sail. Therefore, I also refused to leave the dock until he put it on, "I don't know your skill, and I am not going to be responsible for you." 

A month later, after he bought the boat, I heard he was sailing with a friend who didn't know how to sail. He fell overboard, for some reason, and the friend didn't know how to get the boat back to pick him up. He again didn't have a preserver on and ultimately died in the confusion since I learned he didn't know how to swim.


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## istracpsboss (Sep 14, 2008)

Thanks guys. I got a real ear bashing when I told him. The most frightening aspect was that he really doesn't seem to be at all cautious. He is convinced there is nothing to it and any fool can use one, If someone I knew that knew about a tool was counseling caution, I'd listen to them.

He was complaining that he'd have to go out and buy one. I've told him it is not a good idea but he won't listen. I've warned him that building a heavy oak bookcase is not a good starter project and that the 8mm bits that are all you can buy in Croatia are just not man enough for this sort of heavy work. 

Oddly,although you can get the bigger Bosch and Makita routers here, no-one sells anything bigger than 8mm bits and in a very limited range,too. I once tried ordering a Freud bit from my local supplier and discovered that the importer had no stock and only ordered when he had enough orders to get a decent discount ! As home woodworking is not popular here that could take a year !

Cheers

Peter


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## istracpsboss (Sep 14, 2008)

I should have mentioned that I haven't time at the moment to do any woodworking of my own, let alone doing it for or with someone else.

Cheers

Peter


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## gav (Oct 12, 2009)

Sounds like your average Croatian man. Thinks he knows it all.
I'd disagree that 8mm bits aren't up to the task though. I use them all the time on oak.


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

Peter, show him all the replies you got on this and then ask him if he thinks all of us are wrong and he is the only one that believes he can run your router with no experience or training. Sounds from what you describe that he has more b*lls than brains.


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## TheOakDude (Oct 11, 2011)

Looks like you have a business opportunity there mate.


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## MikeMa (Jul 27, 2006)

You know, we make a very large investment with our tools. When you really think about out, loaning out a tool really is putting a lot on the line. Here in the U.S. there are too many lawyers. If I loaned a tool, and the person who borrowed it injures themselves, I could be liable, or fighting a court case to prove otherwise. That is on the extreme side of things. If they don't know how to use it, they could damage it, they could not return it, and who knows what else could happen. There is nothing wrong with want to protect your investment. There has been more than one occasion that I ended up helping someone out with their project so that they get done what is needed, while at the same time I know my tools are in good hands.


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## Phil P (Jul 25, 2010)

Hi Peter

I thought that you did the right thing there. Personally I don't have much difficulty refusing loans, after all my tools are my livlihood, yada, yada, etc, etc. I maybe have a few more scars on my hands than you with which to warn the unwary of the potential pitfalls of being gung-ho with a router. I should hasten to add that none of my scars and stitches were the result of a portable router accident, but others won't necessarily know that!

Regards

Phil


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## 10940 (Feb 27, 2011)

*Can I borrow a router*

I dont think anyone should use ANY woodworking machine for the first time without someone with knowledge & experience to supervise their procedure.I have seen too many accidents in my lifetime,and I dont want to see or hear of any more.


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

10940 said:


> I dont think anyone should use ANY woodworking machine for the first time without someone with knowledge & experience to supervise their procedure.I have seen too many accidents in my lifetime,and I dont want to see or hear of any more.


Hi N/a, welcome to the forum.

A friendly 'first' name in your profile would be good....


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## old55 (Aug 11, 2013)

Welcome to the forum N/A.


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## ScottD in BC (Mar 6, 2014)

Yessir. Times have changed I'm afraid. One of my best friends, a total non power tool user begged me to loan him my belt sander to do a few boards around his hot tub which had gotten all weathered. I too have a no-loan with potentially lethal tool attitude. I'll come over & do the job with my tool but not loan it out. So this one time, I agree. First of all it's for a week or so. After a month I ask if he's done the job yet? Nope, 3 months later he gives it back. (after I go to his house) Now he's a great guy, and an old friend. He gives me 2 new belts and says thanks. What the heck, maybe I'm wrong to lend tools out I thought. 2 months later I have to sand down a swollen drawer side. Sparks and rattle coming from my sander! I take it to the repair store, yup bearings are toast. $75 to fix. So it's toast. But the hard part is ya see, this was an older belt sander I'd got from my Dad's estate after he died. Yeah, it was no Makita etc, but it meant a lot to me. I had figured "what could go wrong?" A year later he mentioned how he'd run it for days and days doing his entire sundeck. Not just the area around the hot tub. I kept the sander in the shop as a reminder to myself. I meant well by loaning, he meant well borrowing. He didn't purposely wreck it in fact he had no idea he'd burnt out the bearings. He's still a good friend. I feel uncomfortable every time I see him and "tool talk" comes up. Take it from all previous commenters. It is bad practise to "loan out unsupervised" a power tool. Heck the lawsuits are so itching to be laid, my insurance broker said I'm liable for injuries if I let anyone on my property to even cut their own firewood. Sheesh .....


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

You can lead a duck to water but you can't teach it to swim...I think that's how the saying goes 

It takes a special kind of nerve to ask if you can borrow tools; substitute 'wife' and you get the general concept.


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