Great build quality.
BOSCH RA1181 Benchtop Router Table 27 in. x 18 in. Aluminum Top I put it together. Haven't yet put it to use. I'll only speak to what I can tell from the assembly. Great instructions! Bosch has gone to great lengths to take all guess work out of the assembly process, something other manufacturers should take a lesson from. The paper booklet is much better than online manuals, although I used both at different times. For those of use who think manuals are an unnecessary imposition on our God-like intelligence; I suggest you read the manual at least a little in advance of the parts you're assembling. It might save you some assembly-disassembly-reassembly. Don't ask me how I know. You know how I know. Ever wondered which bolt is the #10-16 x 1/2" and which is the #10-24 x 1/2"? The paper booklet has a true-to-size print of each and every bolt, washer, nut, etc. that solves the mysteries of identifying an incredibly large number of parts that come with the router table. How many parts is a large number? There are 161 parts, a few of which are for other models of Bosch router tables. A key identifies each part with a number that matches the true-to-size part's representation in the booklet. BTW: I didn't notice any Chinesium fasteners whose Philips head screws round out with the slightest bit of aggressive twisting of the old driver bit. All the fasteners are of a quality you might find in something like automotive manufacturing. All the main component parts are solid and well-made. Plastic is not all made the same. Time will tell how the plastic components hold up, but I expect they'll do just fine. I was very surprised at how sturdy the aluminum fence was. The same for the aluminum router plate and table top. I did not expect them to be so heavy. When I was removing the table top from the carton I wondered, due to its weight, if it was steel rather than aluminum. Leveling the router plate: I've seen reviews that made comments about the difficulty of leveling the router plate and aligning it to the same plane as the table top. I found no problem with this at all and verified the results with a TSO MTR-X triangle. I didn't go so far as to get out a set of feeler gauges to look for thousandths of an inch differences, but I don't expect to be routing components for use on Space-X. It's woodworking, not rocket science! Price: I got a terrific Black Friday price of $172.81, or so I thought. It's still (12/20/24) listed at about the same price on Amazon. I am not a connoisseur of router tables. I did the usual due diligence one might expect a penny pincher to do when making a purchase that offers the best of everything at the lowest price available and I think it went a lot better than expected. I wasn't looking for a table that cost $400 or more. I wasn't looking for the largest table or one that attaches to a Festool MFT. I wanted a table I could use in the basement or out on the driveway and pick up and carry to a job site without too much muscle strain that was suited for making moldings, dados and so forth. I was first looking for a table with a two part fence so it could be used for jointing. I admit to being disappointed that the best table I found did not have that feature. It took a while to find a Youtube video that spoke to this problem. But Bosch solved it by including two 1/16" "Jointing Shims" that slide behind the out feed fence to allow edge jointing in increments of 1/16" to 1/8". It's not an infinity of adjustments but then no fiddling is required to set up the table for jointing. Just slide a shim behind the fence and you're ready to go. So, that may actually be an advantage over two separately moveable fences that require careful alignment to get the right cut on an edge joint. I rarely give five stars but I think they are well deserved in the case of the Bosch RA1181 and the great Amazon price. For $175, how can you go wrong? Read more
