Router Plane

[Shannon Brantley]

I'm in the market for one. I've avoided it long enough. Is there a significant advantage of a LV or LN over an older Stanley 71 or 71 1/2?

[Brian Holcombe]

I have a LN, but given the choice a second time I would chose the LV, it's a better design. I have no experience with the older Stanley's.

[Zach Dillinger]

Shannon, I've had (and sold off) vintage Stanley 71s and 71 1/2s. They work well but are often incomplete. Parts can be tricky to find. I also have a couple of hags tooth wooden routers (one shop made, one vintage commercial) and they work well. But my go-to for most work is my LN. I also have the LN 271 and the LV mini-router, which both see work as well. If I had to choose one, it would be the LN... even if it does hurt my soul to admit that something new is better than something vintage :)

[James Ziegler]

I'm in the market for one. I've avoided it long enough. Is there a significant advantage of a LV or LN over an older Stanley 71 or 71 1/2?

I have a 71, and it works just fine. The big advantage to the new models is their better depth stop mechanisims. The LV and LN have depth stop collars that go around the blade shank. The depth stop on the 71 is pretty much useless (to me), it's a separate rod that would bottom out in the groove. The other problem with old is that many only will come with one blade, and getting the others can be a challenge (although the LV blades are said to fit). If you have the money to spend, the LV looks the best to me, but on a budget, and old 71 is fard to beat.

[Jim Koepke]

My router plane is the Sargent equivalent of the Stanley 71. It is able to use the router plane blades from Lee Valley.

It is a very useful and capable tool.

If money wasn't a concern I would give a serious look at the Veritas® Router Plane.

There are a lot of innovations included in its design. Most of the innovations are a convenience which will not make the plane do the actual work any better.

From looking at the information on the Lie-Nielsen Router Plane it looks to be a modern version of the Stanley 71. It also looks as if LN doesn't have the blade variety available from LV. It may be that my looking at their web site wasn't complete. It appears you need to buy an adapter to use the small router plane blades.

The real consideration might be in the cost for a set of blades. The LV price is much more attractive.

Speaking of blades, the LV blades will work in an old Stanley or Sargent with a little adaptation. Flip the adjuster nut or install a wooden base on the sole. The LN blades do not look to be useable in the older planes.

The important factor in the determination of which will be suited to your need is if you have needs of some of the specialty features offered for the Veritas® Router Plane. There is a wide variety of blades available in inch and metric sizes. There is also a blade set to be used with inlay projects.

jtk

[Robert Hazelwood]

I've got a 71-1/2. It works well and is a very useful tool, but it lacks a depth stop, which is very annoying at times. For example, if you are doing tenon trimming on a group of identical parts and would like to shave the tenons to the same thickness, I pretty much have to leave the setting for the final thickness and not mess with it. Since you can't remove a whole lot of material on one pass with a router plane, that means if I sawed a tenon a bit on the thick side I might have to begin trimming with a chisel before taking the final pass with the router plane. It's fiddly to replicate an exact depth setting since the screw adjustment threads are on the coarse side, and the cutter tends to wobble around when you loosen the collar to make the adjustment. With a better adjustment system and reliable depth stop you could raise the cutter slightly when you have more material to remove, and simply work down to a repeatable final setting. It seems like the LN/LV versions (especially the LV) would be more like this.

Also, mine only came with the 1/2" straight cutter. Ebay planes I've seen usually do not have all the cutters- I think they originally came with a 1/2 straight, 1/4" straight, and a 1/2" vee cutter. While the 1/2 has done whatever I've needed so far, it would be nice to have the other two. The LV comes with two, and they offer seemingly dozens of sizes, along with some pretty cool accessories for inlay/beading, etc. The price is pretty reasonable, too. About $150...for comparison a relatively clean 71-1/2 seemed to be around $50 on ebay. Ones with complete cutters were up around $100. Though if you are patient and do a lot of searching I'm sure you can find better deals.

[Shannon Brantley]

Thanks for the replies. I was leaning towards the LV and now I feel better about it.

[john davey]

Shannon, that is how I went. I have used my 71 for a while and it works fine but the adjustments are a little harder to deal with. My LV is wonderful :)

[Judson Green]

I've got a Stanley 71½ and am quite happy with it. I have a baseplate for it that usually stays on and made a fence that works very well for me. Having a depth stop might be nice. And I can confirm the cutters from LV fit it.

293227 293228 293229

[Jim Sevey]

I like my Veritas very much. Comfortable, fence and multiple blades available. Easy to adjust and use. I thought it was reasonably priced.

[Tony Zaffuto]

I'm going to toss in an oddball suggestion: depending upon width of blade, take a peak at what LV calls their "hinge mortise plane". Uses same adjustment mechanism as their router plane (which I also have), but with the open throat, you get an excellent view of the job at hand. Downside is it only comes with a 3/4" blade, though it would not be hard to make a smaller blade. The other nice thing is the length, which gives far more registration on the stock - sort of reminiscent of the old Preston rectangular router planes.

[Jim Neeley]

First I'll share my bias.. I own the LN large and small varieties.

The most significant difference between the large LN and LVs is the angle of the knobs, a matter of preference.

The most significant difference between the small LV and LN router planes is that a depth stop is available for the LN. When making multiple pieces with cuts to the same depth this permits you to set the final depth and then sneak up on them, completing the board that's in your vise (dogs) before moving to the second while keeping the depths between the pieces accurate.

As for the small vs. large, its primarily about the amount of reference area you have available.

Just my $0.02.. YMMV.

Jim

[Frederick Skelly]

I have both the small and large LV. On the smaal, it hard to keep the cutter facing forward because it has a round shaft. Other than that, I love that little tool. (There are some fixes I could make to improve that. I just havent done so.)

The large is nice tool all around. Very glad I bought it.

Fred

[Jim Matthews]

The steel in the LV cutters is excellent, and easy to hone.
(The blades come off the shaft.)

The precision screw feed to set depth on the LV is a valuable improvement
over the original Stanely 71.

I use my router plane to trim the bottom of grooves and make sure tenons are all the same dimension.
I use the same depth setting to mark the walls of mortises, so there's no errors in translation.

That fine adjustment has made a difference in the fit and finish of my most critical joints.

[Derek Cohen]

I have used the LV and LN Large router planes alongside one another. They are both superb tools. Both are a big advance in precision over the Stanley that inspired them. Blade adjustment, balance ... just their solid feel.

At first glance one might point to the handle angle being the main difference, but this is superficial - everyone will have a preference.

When it first came out, the LN had the superior depth stop. I have said elsewhere that this is a very important set up mechanism for precise, repeatable work. The LV was difficult to adjust. However, LV changed their version and these aspects are now on a par.

Where the LV outscores the LN, leaving the LN behind, is in the wide range of blades available from LV (LN require an adapter, which is flimsy. I have heard that LN have more blades in the pipeline). The spring-loading of the blades in the LV also make it much easier to adjust and set up than the LN. Lastly, the fence of the LV is much easier to set and adjust as well. LN continue to use the old Stanley design (although, as with their planes, they take quality to a much higher level than Stanley dreamed of doing).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Bill Fleming]

I have both of the LN router planes and love them. While for some the "blade adapter" approach is a neg. for me I like sharing blades between the two tools.

[Jim Koepke]

I'm going to toss in an oddball suggestion: depending upon width of blade, take a peak at what LV calls their "hinge mortise plane". Uses same adjustment mechanism as their router plane (which I also have), but with the open throat, you get an excellent view of the job at hand. Downside is it only comes with a 3/4" blade, though it would not be hard to make a smaller blade. The other nice thing is the length, which gives far more registration on the stock - sort of reminiscent of the old Preston rectangular router planes.

According to the write up on this the blades are interchangeable with the router plane blades.

At the bottom of the text:


interchangeable with the blades of the Veritas® router plane (our items #05P38.21+). A blade sharpening jig for the two-piece blade is also included.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=71265&cat=1,41182

jtk

[Tony Zaffuto]

Thanks Jim. Since I have a LV large router plane, I'm home free. But I got to say, that hinge plane is something else and I reach for it a lot in the short time I've had it!

[Mike Henderson]

I have the full size LV router plane and love it. I had bought the LN small router plane but it had two problems that caused me to sell it.

1. It does not have a depth adjusting screw. As someone else said, the way you use one of these is you take a bit off, then drop the blade a bit, and take a bit more off, etc. Without an adjusting screw, it was very hard to get the next increment. The blade would slip down on me, and then you've lost your reference. Trying to adjust it "a little bit" was a pain.

2. The small LN plane uses a brass screw that's stuck into a corner and is about impossible to tighten by hand, and then impossible to loosen by hand. So you have to have a screwdriver on your bench when you use this plane.

I found these two deficiencies to be more than I wanted to deal with every time I used the plane so I sold it and just use the larger LV router plane. The LV has a bunch of different sized blades so unless the body is just too big to fit into your work space, I think the LV full size is the best bet.

Mike

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Mike

Your comments are spot-on. LV use a curvy washer to add spring to the adjusters. This helps prevent all the tension going at once, and the blade dropping out (as it can with the LN). I wonder if it is possible to add a curvy washer to the LN? That would be a very cheap upgrade.

I've used these on the router planes I built (these are between the Large and Small in size) ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/Router%20planes/11_zps9c5dbd33.jpg

You can see the curvy washer here. It really works ...

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/BuildingaWoodenRouterPlane_html_755881cf.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek