Seaton Tool Chest Router

[greg Forster]

This is my first attempt at the router from the Seaton Chest. It works okay, but once I got it built and put the iron in, I see some needed refinements which eluded me in the photo, especially on the escapement .
The QS Beech was generously donated by a worn-out razee plane and it was the darn hardest Beech I ever worked with... wow!

189864Seaton router from The Tool Chest of Benjamin Seaton- The Tools and Trades History Society (1994)

189865

[Niels Cosman]

Great work Greg- that's a handsome tool!
Im curious to hear how it works in use. How is the iron set up?

[David Keller NC]

Greg - one hint from having seen/handled a lot of antique routers of this form. It looks from your picture that the iron in your plane is set very steeply. While this form of wooden router does have a more steeply set iron than the "D" type of antique router, the iron in the "old woman's tooth" type of router that you've made typically has a cutting angle of about 50 degrees or less, and the lower you can get the cutting angle, the easier it will be to use the tool.

[greg Forster]

thanks Niels, it does look pretty good, except for the escapement and I might glue a piece in and re-shape it, just from an appearance issue

David, yes I was really unsure of the angle; looked at alot of pictures and did find one book that noted "in toothing planes the irons are set upright and in 'old woman's tooth planes' or routers nearly upright", so I tried a fairly steep angle. The router works kinda ok, but it needs a real fine set. I might find things where it is useful or maybe a really cool paperweight. I did see some routers where the iron was laid down at about common pitch, but the bodies were more elongated .

Always grateful for input.

I did a revised drawing and can get to about 58 degrees; just have to find another worn-out plane that's not selling at interior decorator prices or I'm going to be working rock maple.

189937

[Dave Lehnert]

Thanks for the post.
I found the tool chest interesting. Over the years I have collected some nice old hand tools. Would like to build a chest to put them in.

[David Keller NC]

Greg - Guess I should be careful about making generalizations when it comes to antiques. Particularly routers, where most of them may have been made by the craftsmen themselves so that their set of plow irons could be used interchangeably. Nevertheless, I suspect your observation that it works kinda OK, but needs a real fine set may be a symptom of the steep angle. Essentially, you've got a scraping cut, which is by definition a very shallow depth.

This might explain the existence of "D" routers and "Old Woman's Tooth" routers at the same time - it's not impossible that the OWT were used for a different purpose than the D routers, which can take off more wood per pass.

BTW - maple of any flavor (soft, hard, or big leaf) makes fine tools. I suspect the reason that it's not used more in antiques is that it's a lot harder than beech, and so takes more work to turn out the same tool. Moreover, the common presence of a little curl in areas of almost every maple board may have been really undesirable to tool makers - curly wood doesn't work so well with hand tools, especially compared to straight-grained beech.