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Welded Router
OK, I admit it. I’m not the best at tool maintenance. The cord on my trusty old router was frayed down to the wires about 8" away from the motor housing, and occasionally it shorted out. But replacing the cord was too much trouble—if I jiggled it just right, the router ran fine.
Well, I didn’t know what trouble was until I started routing the edge of the tabletop I was building. Halfway through thee job, BAM! A flash and explosion nearly ripped the router from my hands. Shaken but unhurt, I stared at the now-dead router. Its frayed cord was fused to the aluminum body of the router!
I was fortunate not to have gotten a nasty shock—thank heaven I was holding the router by its non-metallic handles. My tabletop, however, wasn’t so lucky. The explosion was so startling, I’d let the router skate across the top’s surface, and the bit left a big, ugly divot. Lesson learned: Now I pay attention to the condition of the cords on all my tools.
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