Spindle choice - Kress 1050 vs Makita 700

X-Carve
1

I am about to start assembling my new X-Carve, but I still haven’t selected a spindle yet.

I can get the Makita 700 router for about £100 ($125) but I am wondering if it is worth spending another £80-100 ($100-125) to get the Kress 1050.

It seems from reading reviews and watching YouTube videos that the Kress might be fractionally smoother, goes slightly lower on rpm and is potentially from durable.

Can anybody tell me if it is any quieter than the Makita, and if it is worth the extra money? Potentially, it will be trickier to mount as I was just going to shim up the Makita in the Dewalt mount.

Thank you

2

I bought my Xcarve with the dewalt trim router 26200 (uk version), but after reading up on things I bought a Kress 1050 mainly as I liked the lower rpms available for working with plastics.

It’s worked a treat for me, and on full power I would say it is probably similar to the dewalt on its lowest setting noise wise.
I use mine mostly between setting 2 and 4 and it really is quite enough to be near all day long.

Also collets in a large range of sizes are readily available.

All in all I’m very happy with my purchase, and if I wasn’t planning on going bigger/better in the spindle department in the future I would definitely get another.

As far as the makita goes I have no experience with it at all so can’t really compare the two.

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3

I went with the Makita as I managed to get it for £90 in a sale, very quiet and shimed easily into the dewalt mount, the only thing that cost too much was the collet which I got from the US and the shipping wasnt cheap.

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4

Kress advantages:

  • narrower, so less lever effect — this is significant
  • collet options directly available from manufacturer / standard, so no need for 3rd party
  • more powerful (800 or 1050 vs. 700 watts)

Notable disadvantages are the price, increased weight, possible need for a custom mount or additional holes, and 220V wiring.

Using a Makita w/ a pair of the Elaire precision collets, but would like to eventually upgrade to a Kress.

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5

I am actually going to the US in a few weeks time. Can you remember where you got the collect from? Cheers

6

The precision collets for the Makita are usually from Elaire Corporation.