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It's reasonably light and so easy to use, but is still powerful enough to do everything needed in making a guitar, albeit sometimes you need to take smaller cuts.
I've also got one of these ...
https://shop.bosch-professional.com/gb/en/product/router-gof-1600-ce--100023293--0601624060
... which is an absolute brute and correspondingly expensive.
Rutlands have offers on their own-brand routers from time to time. Here's one for £100. With a 2-year warranty.
https://www.rutlands.co.uk/sp+precision-147;234;-router-2200w-variable-speed-with-fine-height-adjuster+R5001
I’ve *never* used a router table in guitar building (though, obvs, it’s a perfectly good way of doing it). But unless you’ve already got a table, a decent one of those isn’t cheap, and you’ve still got to buy the router to go into it.
A plunge base is pretty much essential. The Rutlands one I linked to above is looking good (though you don’t really need 1/2” for occasional guitar building) or perhaps the Bosch POF ... watch Amazon for deals.
Tables are great, but wouldn't be a thing you'd use for the whole of a build.
If you're trimming 1-2mm off the edge of the body, then you might do that in 3-4 passes - remembering to change direction of cut as the router gets to different parts of the body.
If you're routing out an internal cavity, I'll generally do 3-4mm at a time rather than going in deep.
https://i.imgur.com/C07eMiI.jpg
I've had this thing over 25 years, it's built all my guitars, it's built a lot of my house and it's made furniture.
It's my favourite tool. The only time I considered a bigger router was when there was a particular shaped bit I wanted and it only came in 1/2" shank. It was cheaper just to change the shape I wanted!
I also have a Trend 1/2 job in the router table which Ive used for truss rod channels - but the Makita is much easier to use for routing cavities and can do the truss rod channel easily too. There is a cheap Katsu copy of the Makita which is OK too.
You can buy a plunge base for the Makita too if you need it. its easy to fit plexiglass plates to the base of the Makita router for more stability for tricky surface jobs.
https://www.axminstertools.com/bosch-gkf-600-palm-router-kit-1-4-te-600-plunge-base-package-deal-ax923100
Nice to have a choice between fixed and plunging bases.
I have a big half inch router for my thicknessing jig, but that's all it gets used for.
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