My favorite thing about my router table is...

[Cody Cantrell]

the ability to make keyhole slots in back of stuff that hangs on the wall. Is there a Neander way of doing this or am I destined to keep this piece of equipment in my shop for this redeeming quality? Thanks for the input.

Cody

[Chris Hachet]

Not sure about the neader way for key slots, but I keep a router table-I do all sorts of stuff, and find being a comibnation woodworker very helpful. YMMV.

[ken hatch]

Sorry, oh so sorry but I can't help myself. My first thought when I read the title was.....Gone, gone, gone.

[Reinis Kanders]

Good one..

Sorry, oh so sorry but I can't help myself. My first thought when I read the title was.....Gone, gone, gone.

[john zulu]

Good question. No answer I can think of. I still like my power router...... Heresy!

[Chris Hachet]

Good question. No answer I can think of. I still like my power router...... Heresy!

I know, right? But there are some tasks that the router just excels at. I am going to be re doing my stairs in quarter sawn oak at home. I will need to cut tongue and groove joints and relief joints on a whole bunch of Oak flooring. Nice job for the router, not something I want to do with hand tools.

Hand tools will touch up a lot of the work though-the flooring will get a final smoothing with my Stanley #5, adjustments for a perfect fit one each stair will be done with hand tools, cuts made in the house will be done with hand tools to reduce noise and dust....

To each his own.

[lowell holmes]

I'm a combination woodworker as well.

I find the neanderthal approach being relaxing.

Power tools scare me a bit. That being said, I would put the tongue and grooves on the oak flooring with my shaper.

[Mike Holbrook]

I have a friend who lost the end of a finger to his router table in one misguided fraction of a second. I have used one a good deal on construction projects, but I am currently looking for other ways to do the work, LV Plow & Skew Rabbet Planes help. I hate the amount of dust a router table can put in the air in a hurry. A router, bit and table do one thing at a time and do not lend themselves to nuances. An extra plane or two take up much less room in a shop, do not require an air filtration system and may, with the addition of a few different blades, actually accomplish a wider range of chores for far less money.

[Chris Hachet]

I have a friend who lost the end of a finger to his router table in one misguided fraction of a second. I have used one a good deal on construction projects, but I am currently looking for other ways to do the work, LV Plow & Skew Rabbet Planes help. I hate the amount of dust a router table can put in the air in a hurry. A router, bit and table do one thing at a time and do not lend themselves to nuances. An extra plane or two take up much less room in a shop, do not require an air filtration system and may, with the addition of a few different blades, actually accomplish a wider range of chores for far less money.

Since my work shop is in my garage I often do most of my work by hand....dust seems to get everywhere, so if I am just building a table or picture frame it will be mostly neander.

When I fire up the router and table saw, I do a whole bunch of cutting and then blow everything down with the garage door open. It is a time consuming mess. Trust me, the LV plow plane is high on my list of want to have items....

[Chris Hachet]

...and I also do not own a planer or Jointer....I find hand planes to be relaxing and take up much less room as well....

[Sean Hughto]

I've never tried, but if someone asked me to make one with only handtools, I believe I could do it without too much fuss. The main slot is just a mortise. The only trick is making the widened sub-slot at the base of the mortise. I think a scratc h bead sort of "L" shaped tool could accomplish that without much fuss.

[Mike Holbrook]

Rereading the OP's post, I missed the significance of the word keyhole the first time around. This may be the issue? If we are talking about something round or rounded? One of the issues many "flat" neander woodworkers face is they tend to think in flat & square terms as a result of the shape of many of the objects they make. Rat tail files and gouges are missing from many "flat" woodworking tool kits. When I started into green woodworking I was startled to find a whole new set of hand tools designed to cut and work curved surfaces. There are many neander tools for cutting curves they just do not get discussed nearly as much.

[Cody Cantrell]

Thanks for the responses guys. Not sure if I could discern the answer in all the responses. Anybody got any other solutions?

[John Kananis]

Bore a hole (Forstner Bit) for the base - the rest is a mortise with an exaggerated undercut.

EDIT: You can you a gauge at the end of the mortise opposite your bored flat-bottom hole if you want a rounded edge.

[Derek Cohen]

I would not attempt to copy the keyhole slot you are describing. It is a machine-made design. Instead, I would use a metal keyhole plate, which is screwed over a drilled hole/simple mortice.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Cody Cantrell]

I like that answer Derek, thanks.

[Sean Hughto]

solutions? yes. scratch stock

[Mike Holbrook]

Cody without a picture, drawing....some idea of what you are actually trying to do it is hard to give a detailed answer. The title of the thread and the short description of a small project seem at cross purposes. Are you asking why specific neanders might prefer to use hand tools vs a router table or are you asking how to do a specific job? On this page pictures are often necessary for understanding.

[Sean Hughto]

He wants to know how to make this by hand:
http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/graphics/photos/tools/rcklrkeyholejig/cutwscrrew300.jpg

[george wilson]

To make that by hand,you hold the router in your bare hand!!

I know that the router was Sear's best selling power tool,at least some years ago.

Personally,I'll do quite a bit to avoid using mine because they throw chips and dust everywhere. The only thing I now do with a router is cut the rabbet around guitar bodies to set the bindings in. We used to do even that by hand in the Instrument Maker's Shop in the museum. Router setup I have makes quick work of that,though I do have to go back and deepen the area in the waist of the body. For some reason,it invariably gets routed too shallow. I use a scratch stock with a piece of saw blade steel in it. If I'm making a Rosewood guitar,the router saves a lot of time.

[Cody Cantrell]

Mike,
Sean's pic is what I was talikng about.

Sean,
I would love to see how you did that, that is exactly what I was talking about.

[Sean Hughto]

Drill a hole to depth for the screw head:
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3120/2730027965_b6b5b07e21_z.jpg?zz=1
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3188/2920785542_54b2264558_z.jpg

chop a mortise narrower than the screw head but wider than the shaft of the screw:
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3085/2806744167_02dedf102f_z.jpg?zz=1

Fashion an "L" shaped scratch stock from a bit of steel from a saw blade or hand scraper and fit into a wood block to hold and form the grooved at the bottom of the mortise. Like this, but made yourself:


https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3275/3096319613_3d266f650e_z.jpg?zz=1

[Bill Houghton]

I would not attempt to copy the keyhole slot you are describing. It is a machine-made design. Instead, I would use a metal keyhole plate, which is screwed over a drilled hole/simple mortice.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Indeed so. Googling "keyhole hanger plate" will give you a vast array of choices, from Amazon, big boxy stores, and so on, ranging from cheap to high-grade. Maybe your local hardware store even has then.

I notice, window-shopping (see, I opened a new window in my browser to look...), that they seem to come in race-track shapes (straight sides, rounded ends) and rectangular. Either one should be easy to mortise for.

Classic hand tool methods for doing the same sort of thing included french cleats and the Shaker pegboards.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

My copy of "The complete woodworker" shows a method of edge joining boards without clamps, using screws set in the edge of one board, with their heads protruding, which fit into keyhole slots in the edge of the other board. They look pretty much like what you are trying to do. The book does not explain how to make that keyhole mortise (my thought was the drill and chisel method as well), but it suggests people were doing that sort of thing long before electric routers.