Oh the joys of not tightening the bit in the chuck enough!

I had a router dive once on a large sculpture (40 hours of restorative work followed). It clearly appeared that the bit had come loose (was wobbling in the collet as the router screamed, stuck in the wood). After another year of using the machine, I’m convinced the bit did NOT come loose; instead, I believe the carriage was briefly stalled by too aggressive of a move. (Once that happens, the machine no longer knows where it is, and stalls further as it tries to go where it thinks it should be and attacks the piece.) The violent vibrations drove the bit loose. Anyhow, another fun possibility to consider! :grinning:

You’d think I’d have made it out to the garage by now to take a picture! Alas I have not, but this is a good representation of the 1/4 → 1/8 reducer I bought from C3D in ~Apr 2019 with my SO3.

It’s mostly just fine; I believe it’s just the C3D upcut bits that pull down? Those are the only ones I’ve had pull out and into my wasteboard.

I would suggest buying a “real” 1/8" collet — if you have a Standard Carbide Compact Router:

Sure. Of course I can’t find it, but ~1-2yrs ago I asked if these were compatible with the Makita that I have. Support said “Yes,” and I suggested adding that to the page. Still don’t see this called out, and I don’t trust my memory, so I have to ask again: are they compatible?

And can someone put that on the page to prevent redundant asking?

Yes, the Standard Carbide Compact Router and the Makita RT0701/0700 use the same collets.

Those work on the Standard Carbide Compact Router, and the ones for the Makita RT0701/0700 at:

work on the Standard Carbide Compact Router.

I run an XXL with the standard router and had the same exact problem. On my final pass to cut out the project, the router made a hard right turn, dug in and destroyed the piece. When I removed the bit, collet nut and pried out the collet, I observed that the collet compression grooves and nut were packed with sawdust, enough so that it impeded fully tightening the nut. My standard procedure now is to fully remove the nut and collet between bit changes, turn the nut over and tap on table to remove the dust and inspect/clean the collet grooves. I was surprised to find how much sawdust actually collected in the collet. I’ve not had a reoccurrence of this issue in over 100 hours routing over the holidays.

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