Do I really need a router?

[cowfoot]

Will do, Paddy. It's based around plane and saw maintenance, looking forward to it as I often come across pretty decent looking saws at car boots etc and the only thing that stops me picking them up is my inability to sharpen one.
Talking edge mouldings, I recently got a Stanley 65 chamfer spokeshave so everything's getting a chamfer lately...set fine it'll get me most of the way to a roundover, too.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Do watch some of Roy Underhill's programmes - the Woodwright's Shop, available from the PBS web server in the US (you will need a fairly fast Internet connection to get decent quality). I'd start around two or three years ("seasons") ago, when he was making a few tables and boxes and chests with hand tools.

He always seems to cut beautiful rebates, and I always seem not to (when trying by hand). But it'll give you a very good idea of what you can and can't do. There was even a programme dedicated to hollows & rounds (planes) last year, I think.

E.

 

[SteveF]

i am slowly heading for retirement
i have 2 routers and a triton in wrapping paper...xmas looming
the 1\4 " makita rarely sees daylight but i cant face parting with it
the of1400 is my go to, but not that often tbh
I have a kitchen to make eventually
i am gathering everything to build a router table .... always wanted one...and will make the doors for kitchen with it
hand tools have a massive appeal to me
part with the electrical option....No Way

Steve

 

[DiscoStu]

of all the power tools to go I think the router is likely to be the last on my list. No because I use it the most but because it's the most difficult to replace with a hand tool. Most power tools replace manual tools for speed and accuracy and whilst that is true for some of the router uses (rebates for example) there are some things that are difficult to do without it. Not only that but it does so many different things. The last think I made was a bathroom vanity unit with shaker style doors. So I had 6mm panels going into 18mm frames. It took a few seconds to cut the groves with the router in a table. Trying to do that by hand would have taken forever especially as the groves on two of the sides stopped before the ends.

My advice would be: Try hand tools but keep the router until your confident that you can live without it. It's Festool so won't loose any value sitting in the corner for a year. I suspect you'll find yourself needing it.

Oh and please wear ear protection. (Not saying you don't)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Take out the router and accessories and put them in a big box. Move it to the loft (if you have one) Or find an understanding friend.

Make it a slight nuisance to go and get it! But don't actually sell it or get rid of it for a while. Get it out the workshop and see if it really makes a big change for you amd push yourself to use hand tool alternatives.

 

[AndyT]

DiscoStu makes a good point about the grooves. Stopped grooves are easy with an electric router but relatively difficult with hand tools. Is that a problem? No, provided that you adjust the construction details to suit hand tool construction. All the problems have been solved. You just need to be aware of the right approach, which, in the example of the door, would have through grooves all round, with haunched tenons filling up the ends of the grooves on the stiles.

 

[NickN]

I took the view that having a router could be useful at times, but I would try and avoid it unless in a hurry or doing something very repetitive. So my cheapo Elu MOF 96 Type 3 sits in its box happily until that time. Whether I'd want something better but tying up a much bigger sum of money is questionable.

By the way, see you at the Paul Sellers course on the 12th!

 

[cowfoot]

Thanks for all the responses, I'll hide the router for a bit and see how I get on without it.
Managed a fairly decent dado/housing today with a saw/chisel/router plane combo...took me a lot longer than it would have done usually but felt more in control, if that makes sense. I let my dust extractor pick up all the chippings just so it didn't feel snubbed afterwards.
In other news, my planer thicknesser arrived last week (Record Power PT260) so I doubt I'll be going back to resizing boards by hand too often, even if it's been keeping me vaguely fit...I worked out that building my workbench took 3 weeks of planing and about a day doing the joinery.
See you on the course, Nick!