A router plane is a hand plane tool used in the field of woodworking for smoothing out sunken panels, and more generally for all depressions below the general surface of the lumber.[1] It planes the bottoms of recesses to a uniform depth and can work into corners that otherwise can only be reached with a chisel. The tool has largely been supplanted by the electrical router and shaper.
This replacement occurred in 1906 with the invention of the first portable power router which was patented by George Kelley and marketed by the Kelley Electric Machine Company. [2]These early electrical routers were heavier than the ones today. The original router plane still retains limited application especially in the hand tool carpentry hobbyist like RobCosman to this day.
One of the first times a router plane shows up in recorded history is in the book Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary according to google n-gram. This book was written by Edward Henry Knight a mechanical expert in the 1800’s.[3]
Further reading[3]
- Wynn, Scott (2010). Woodworker’s Guide to Handplanes: How to Choose, Set Up, and Master the Most Useful Planes for Today’s Workshop. East Petersburg, Pennsylvania, USA: Fox Chapel Publishing. ISBN 978-1-56523-453-6. OCLC 606234673.
References
- ^ a b Salaman, R. A. (1975). Dictionary of tools used in the woodworking and allied trades, c. 1700-1970. Internet Archive. New York: Scribner. pp. 353–354. ISBN 978-0-684-14535-8.
- ^ “Glossary: Router”. A History of Woodworking. Archived from the original on October 13, 2008. Retrieved 2021-01-17.
- ^ a b Knight, Edward Henry (1881). Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary: A Description of Tools, Instruments, Machines, Processes, and Engineering; History of Inventions; General Technological Vocabulary; and Digest of Mechanical Appliances in Science and the Arts. Houghton, Mifflin.