Quote Originally Posted by Tim K View Post
1/2" shank are not more durable, they are more rigid. They chatter less and leave a nicer cut.

Durability with a hand held router is almost impossible to achieve. To keep the bits cool, the feed rates need to be MUCH higher than most humans can achieve. Feed rates that high require more power than is available. As a result, most all bits die of overheating. We feed them too slowly with too fine a cut and there is no chip mass to carry away the heat.

Learning how to control depth of cut and feed rate is much more important than buying ultimate high quality.

Listen to this^^^^.


Also when you do start using a router set up a big table to stabilize your wood, the effort will be well worth it.

And this^^^^

Get the best set of cheap bits you can find. The 15pc set on the site Tim K linked seems pretty reasonable and MLCS has good rep.