McFeely’s Worn Out Router Contest
McFeely’s (”The Square Drive Screw Authority”) is having a contest with the prize being a brand new Freud router. All you have to do is submit a photo of your old, worn out router. It’s amusing to see all the entries and it’s definitely worth a few minutes of your time. Someone even submitted a photo of one of Doug’s favorite routers. You can see it here. It’s the one submitted by B. Aviano.
My first router was a Sears Craftsman. Back then, where I grew up, the only 
place you could buy a router was from Sears. I didn’t know any better. It worked okay. Until the time I was building a stereo cabinet for my brother-in-law out of birch plywood. I was routing ¾”-wide dados across the side panels. As I was halfway across the panel, I noticed the pitch of the motor changed. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. The bit had slipped out of the collet and routed clear through my panel! At that point, I shut the lights out and went to bed. I couldn’t afford to buy new plywood, so I made a plug out of scrap and carefully fit it into place. To this day, you can hardly tell that there was a mistake.
Just remember — being a good woodworker isn’t just one who knows how to put something together. He’s also one that knows how to fix mistakes.