Router Plane Selection, Uses, and Tips

hi i'm rob cause and welcome to my shop one of the simplest woodworking hand tools the router plane is also one of the most precise one of my favorite specialty planes stay with me and i'm going to introduce you to the precision of the router plane i'm rob cosman and welcome to my shop we make it our job to help take your woodworking to the next level if you're new and you haven't subscribed please do so hit the notification bell so you'll receive alerts when we release a new video and anytime we use a special tool we'll always leave a description down below all right let's get to work as you start to accumulate hand planes it won't be soon after your basic set you're going to want to add either both or one of these router planes its primary function is to cut a surface that is parallel to the reference surface it has a blade that's adjustable in height you can actually get several different blades but simple as it is you lock that in place and then by running that off of one surface the bottom or the area being cut ends up being perfectly parallel to that surface referenced on the bottom of the plane really simple two different sizes to choose from let's go into it a little bit deeper when choosing a router plane i think the most important of course it has to be accurately milled and all the rest of it but the most important part is to look for how the blade is held in place and stanley had a router plane that was extremely popular but the mechanism that held the blade in place i felt was faulty in fact i've had them come apart on me in mid-use and i think what leigh nielsen has done has perfected it so it's as simple as having a hole milled down through the body of the tool that is actually a square and then a square shaped i prefer this style because it won't turn on you a square shaped cutter that fits up in there now you've got a brass screw that pushes on this corner so it drives this cutter against this side and that side and locks it firmly in place there's no play it's permanently it's fixed it does not move in fact on this larger one which has an adjustment what i like to do is put just a little bit of tension on that so that when i'm making this adjustment there's a little bit of pressure and it can really go in there and it's a much finer it provides for much finer adjustment won't allow that blade to accidentally fall and then when you get it where you want it just snug up a little bit more but that in my opinion is the absolute best way to secure that blade in place now when it comes to adjusting the depth on the small one which is referred to as the number 271 all you have to do is put that in place loosen that knob i use a screwdriver but you can certainly do it by hand let that drop down when you get it where you want it simply snug it up i always like to put the screwdriver on it just to give it a little extra torque on the larger model as i showed you earlier it has a little more of a refined adjustment i take just a little bit of pressure on that screw and then you can turn the knob to either advance it or retract it now something you can also get with this larger one is a depth stop so if you loosen this off and take this all the way out you can slide over this depth stop or collar back that off put this back together now if you're working on multiple grooves or dados and they're all going to be the same depth but you can't hog all that material with one setting you can get the one setting that's going to be your final setting and then you can simply go in and work each one at various stages but when the last one comes you just drop it down to the collar lock it and then you get that repeatability that's nice and accurate of course the question that's always asked is how do you sharpen the blade well first of all what you need to realize is you don't really do a whole lot of work with a router plane blade so it's not like you're going to have to sharpen it on a regular blade basis you might get a three or four months you might get a year out of it but like any blade it's got two cutting surfaces or it's got two surfaces that meet to create the cutting edge one is going to be the bottom the other is going to be the bevel so like any chisel you were going to go in first and polish what would be the bottom or if we were talking about a chisel we'd call it the back and i find with these small blades that if you try to push them forward they often chatter so what i'm doing is pushing putting my finger right on the bevel and then just pushing down and pulling back and do that until you've eliminated all of the grinding marks from the factory and it's not a very large surface area so it won't take that long once you've been able to remove all of those grinding scratches with whatever stone you're using in this case it's a 1000 grit i would then progress to the next grit and then finish off with my final grit in my case it would be a 16 000. now the bevel's a little more difficult although not terrible and what you're going to do is you've got to have your stone so that your blade can be hanging down you're going to find that primary bevel which is going to be the main bevel on there remember you don't need to polish all that because only part that touches the wood is right up here so i'll find that primary bevel raise the blade up just a little bit and just do a little forward and back strokes concentrating on keeping the blade flat on the stone flip it over and look and you should have a uniform secondary bevel created once you've done that you're going to go to your final stone you don't need to go to an in between not on a little surface like that again find your find your primary come up just a little bit higher than the previous stone in other words you're you're applying a tertiary bevel to save time literally short strokes you can't really do much more than that anyway because of the long stem running down and once you've done that a second or two on the final stone just to remove any burr and you're good to go now there is a fence that you can get actually i think it comes with the large router plane and i must admit i've never used it i'm going to show you why but if you did need it you can use it one of two ways if you're working on an irregular shaped or a round edge you could use this one where you've got two contact points it doesn't give you a whole lot of stability but there's an adjustment knob that you can simply go in there there's three different holes where you can thread that into get it where you want it and lock it in place or you can turn it around and you can use a flat side well i typically would want a whole lot more reference surface than what this little thing provides and by the way you can use it on either side so i'll show you what i would prefer i actually often use this i like to have an extra base and the reason is i want a lot more reference surface for when i'm using the tool than what i have with this one of the functions i'm going to show you is how you can go in and adjust the thickness of a tenon and when you're doing that you've only got part of the plane referencing on the registration surface the other is out in midair and the cutter is such that it's wanting to pull it this way well in those circumstances i like to have a lot of extra surface area over here bearing surface that will keep this nice and stable so what i've done is i've used taken a piece of taurified maple which is nice and stable and i simply drilled a couple of quarter inch diameter holes with a nut and washer to keep that in place and if i need to use a fence i now have a much bigger surface that i can clamp on a longer surface that will give me much more reference for when it comes to working a long edge or anytime that you're doing an area that requires the stability or the accuracy of a fence i just think that little short with that little one that comes with it and it really isn't big enough to add anything to it so if you're doing something where you're going to need the reference of a fence get yourself a base plate like this held securely in place because you don't want anything to move and then any kind of a long stick of wood that would be put on there and you could clamp it on and then that gives you all kinds of reference surface usually i just do this freehand actually the way my base plate is 12 by four and a half and i find that's just right you can make it bigger you can make it a little bit smaller but that one works well for me so you've cut a dado whether it's in solid wood or plywood and if you're using a router or if you're using a dado blade on a table saw chances are you're not always going to have that depth absolutely accurate you go to put something together and you've got a bit of a bump in there and now your shoulder doesn't close or the case ends up being spread a little bit because it bottomed out here so what i prefer to do obviously hog off the majority of the material with whatever manner you're cutting your dado but then bring your router plane into play and this is where you can go in you can you want to set the depth i sometimes just go in and set the depth at the lowest point but if you have a fixed dimension in mind this is where i like to just put a little bit of pressure on the screw make sure that's loose just as i'm moving it i'm turning the knob just until i start to pick up a shaving there and i'll lock it in place i can lock this one too in case i have to do this in another spot and then i usually go right down the middle first now if this is going to be seen instead of plowing through this way which you may break some fibers off i'll turn it around and come in from the end then once you've gone down through the middle go over to the side you don't want to disturb this so i'm turning it slightly but i want that corner to be right in the corner of my blade right into the corner make sure there's no debris up in the top that's going to interfere but if there's a chance you're going to tear something out then again flip it around and come in from the end but this is the absolute best way to get a dado with a uniform depth all the way across and on something smaller you can go in and use your small rotor plane the exact same way so that's probably the primary function on to the next this may be one that you had not thought of you've cut a tenon trying to fit it into your mortise and you're trying to get it exact this by the way is what i would call a go no-go joint if it's too loose the glue does not fill the gap if it's too tight it pushes all of the glue down to the bottom so all you've got is a mechanical fit it literally needs to go in and have the two sides touching the two sides of the mortise in order for you to get a good joint and if you're trying to sneak up on it to get it just right well here's what you can do again we'll loosen these up put just enough pressure in here to give me a little bit of back force when i'm advancing it now the first thing i'd want to do is make sure that i've cut it and it's parallel to the face of the board so once i feel it start to touch i'll lock it in place i'll start out here in the end a lot of pressure on my left hand because as i mentioned now you notice that i'm touching here but not there so i'm gonna go down here which i know is my lowest point okay that's making contact i like to shear meaning have the blade on a bit of an angle lots of force on my left hand keeping the router plane [Music] so that it is or remains parallel to this face right into that corner careful not to allow your right hand to put downward pressure now if in the process of doing this you discover that you're just a shaving off what you can do is take literally take a shaving of wood let's see if i can get one that comes in out intact set that in place put your router plane on it drop the blade down until it just makes contact snug it up remove the shaving which is going to allow the plane to drop just the thickness of the shaving and then you can go in and just lift that last little bit of material and allow you to really sneak up on that remember lots of pressure on the left side that'll allow you to get a perfect fit with the mortise and tenon next one if you're cutting a rabbet on the back of a panel and again and using the table saw or a router it's not always as accurate as you would like you can come in with your router plane get that set lock it in place now this is a long grain cut so you may want to pay attention to grain direction right into the corner same as before you've got to keep lots of pressure on the side that's making contact with the panel in this case my left side now any of those operations can also be done with the small router plane what i like about the small rotor plane is that the support of the of the side the flat pieces are a lot closer to the blade on this plane than they are on the large rotor plane unless of course you put a an additional base on there i like this it's uh it's very convenient very simple there's no moving parts one screw to adjust the blade and you just move it by hand up or down not very expensive but an extremely accurate tool and as i mentioned i think everybody should have at least one router plane in their arsenal hi if you like my work if you like my style of teaching click on any one of these videos to help take your woodworking to the next level and i've always said better tools make it a whole lot easier if you click on the icon with the plane in the chisel it'll take you to our website introduce you all of our tools and also talk to you about our online and in-person workshops good luck in your woodwork

Channel: RobCosman.com

Views: 27,176

Rating: 4.9805689 out of 5

Keywords: router plane, hand tools, hand planes, best router plane, router planer jig, using a router plane, choosing a router plane, router plane tips, router plane review, diy router plane base, rob cosman, woodworking

Id: TvUzpGaa-d8

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021