How much for a router!!??

[AndyT]

I was vaguely aware that the price of an old Stanley or Record router plane had been creeping up, probably because of more people seeing them used on YouTube and wanting to get one. I'd seen them increase in price from about £30 up to about twice as much.

The other day in Bristol Design there was a chat about how they are having trouble finding any to sell at a reasonable price, so I had a look on eBay at the sold listings.
You can sometimes see one with a single cutter go for under £70 but there are plenty over the ton, and some complete in the box selling for £150 +.

Using Axminster as a benchmark, the new Lie-Nielsen equivalent (with one cutter) is £139 and the Veritas is £148 - and both are out of stock.

So what is a new woodworker going to do?

If you don't fancy making your own, my only suggestion is to invent a time machine and buy one thirty years ago!

 

[Bodgers]

The wide Preston pattern ones Walkemoore tools replicated also go for crazy money.

I was looking for a Stanley 71 but like you say, compared to new, it just doesn't make sense at these prices unless you are a collector. Going rate at the end of bidding is about £100. There is a fixed price one on for £200 with original box and manual atm! It is looking like a Veritas from Canada for me I think.

Have you seen these?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B077V2 ... uter+plane

Looks a bit rough, but do you think it is worth a punt?



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[transatlantic]

So what is a new woodworker going to do?]

Get a Katsu

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Hmm. Home made or interweb auction Old Woman's Tooth would solve most hand router problems. I think I paid about a tenner including postage for mine, and it came with a free plough iron into the bargain! In fairness, it's not as refined a tool as the Stanley, Record or Preston - but it works if you want the bottom of a housing levelled!

 

[D_W]

Just wait for an lv router to be in stock.

 

[thetyreman]

I bet veritas are doing well at the moment! I got one back when they really were more expensive than old second hand ones, can't believe the prices of old ones now. I think the older hags tooth style ones are a good buy, or if you had the confidence make your own using the veritas blades.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Last year I considered getting a second router so I could keep it at final depth and creep up on the gauge line with my Stanley. I never did get one but after checking ebay I decided a new LV or LN was the way to go. I'm pretty sure I only paid £10 or £20 for my Stanley, and that was only seven or eight years ago.

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

The whole inflated prices on the vintage router planes and the expense of new decent one is the reason I made one. The most expensive thing I had to buy for mine was the veritas blades at around £14 each from Canadian Tools' website. Apart from that, for the first usable version of mine it was probably less than £10 on cheap bits of brass hardware on ebay, and I already had an antique Lignum Vitae lawn bowls ball (think a pair of them on ebay was around £10 a while ago) and already have a few boxwood logs, so all in all I highly recommend making one, it's definitely the cheapest option - let alone the satisfaction element!

 

[Sheffield Tony]

The Veritas one looks quite nice. Many of their tools are ... erm, a matter of taste. I normally prefer old tools, but in the case of my Stanley 71 I'm less sure. The clamping arrangement for the cutter doesn't work too well, it seems to find its way loose frequently, probably because of poor finishing. I could almost be tempted to sell it whilst the prices are good, then buy the Veritas when it is back in stock - it looks better made.

 

[AndyT]

Have you seen these?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B077V2 ... uter+plane

Looks a bit rough, but do you think it is worth a punt?

I'd sooner have an old bowling ball like Sawdust=Manglitter's!

It does look odd as a commercial offering, but it could make sense as a simple metalworking project at school or at home - the photos show you all you'd need to know. I'd be very disappointed if I'd paid that much and got something looking so ugly. Robert Wearing had some nice designs, mostly in wood, but with a screw adjuster. (See "The Resourceful Woodworker" or old copies of the Woodworker magazine.)

Oh and I agree that OWT style routers have their place - but the adjustability of the Stanley design makes it capable of much more. As for one of the Prestons or a repro of one - not much chance of that!

 

[D_W]

Yes on stanley vs. wood. If you're removing anything appreciable, the design is much better and less tipsy. But the wooden ones look better.

I believe I paid an average of $55 for two router planes, one stanley and one millers falls. But that was about 11 years ago.

If chancing across an old one, just buy new cutters - it looks like the old cutters have gone completely absurd in price.

 

[AndyT]

So what is a new woodworker going to do?]

Get a Katsu

I had to look that one up! I've not worn out my old Bosch POF500 yet, so I've not been paying attention ...

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I agree with David that you should wait for the Veritas Large Router to become available. It is the best router plane manufactured.

In the meantime you could build a wooden version. There are plans on my website here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTo ... Plane.html

A few years ago Vic Tesolin (who does the tool demos for Veritas/Lee Valley) came to visit. I gave him one of mine. A month ago I was reading the August edition of Furniture and Cabinetmaking magazine, and discovered a nice comment from Vic ...

Vic also posted a video at Fine Woodworking magazine on a router sharpening tip of mine ...

http://www.finewoodworking.com/2017/12/ ... ic-tesolin

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Tasky]

You can sometimes see one with a single cutter go for under £70 but there are plenty over the ton, and some complete in the box selling for £150 +.
Using Axminster as a benchmark, the new Lie-Nielsen equivalent (with one cutter) is £139 and the Veritas is £148 - and both are out of stock.
So what is a new woodworker going to do?

Based on previous advice:

- Thank the collectors for saving all these old tools that would have been thrown away, so that they're still around and instead you simply cannot afford to buy them....
- Thank Paul Sellers for driving the price up and making them harder to get hold of, because he's saving woodworking from becoming obsolete...

Maybe try the poor mans version, if you need something in the meantime. An old 10mm allen key and a metal file works OK - Just remember to slope the underside of the cutter a bit.

That, and just pre-order the Veritas one.
I was very lucky and was given one for Christmas.... it's gorgeous, lovely to use and absolutely worth the money.... or would have been if it cost me anything!!

 

[transatlantic]

So what is a new woodworker going to do?]

Get a Katsu

I had to look that one up! I've not worn out my old Bosch POF500 yet, so I've not been paying attention ...

Have you been living under a rock?

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

So what is a new woodworker going to do?

If you don't fancy making your own, my only suggestion is to invent a time machine and buy one thirty years ago!

"Doctor! There's an anomaly in the space-time continuum! Caused by......?" :shock: :shock:

 

[AndyT]

Er.. just to save my embarrassment and anyone else's, when I asked what a new woodworker should do, I wasn't asking for myself - that's my £13.50's worth of Stanley 71 in the pictures and I've been woodworking and posting about it on here for quite a while... but thanks for the sympathy!

I expect the market will recover and prices will settle down again, especially if new makers offer a good enough product at a lower price. I think that while some of the demand is from people who want to use them, some of the eBay bubble is from people who see things being sold "too cheap" and buy them to resell at a higher price after a short wait. Whether the demand is still there when they put them out for sale at a higher price, is the risk they take.

 

[Bodgers]

You can sometimes see one with a single cutter go for under £70 but there are plenty over the ton, and some complete in the box selling for £150 +.
Using Axminster as a benchmark, the new Lie-Nielsen equivalent (with one cutter) is £139 and the Veritas is £148 - and both are out of stock.
So what is a new woodworker going to do?

Based on previous advice:

- Thank the collectors for saving all these old tools that would have been thrown away, so that they're still around and instead you simply cannot afford to buy them....
- Thank Paul Sellers for driving the price up and making them harder to get hold of, because he's saving woodworking from becoming obsolete...

Maybe try the poor mans version, if you need something in the meantime. An old 10mm allen key and a metal file works OK - Just remember to slope the underside of the cutter a bit.

That, and just pre-order the Veritas one.
I was very lucky and was given one for Christmas.... it's gorgeous, lovely to use and absolutely worth the money.... or would have been if it cost me anything!!

I don't think it's any surprise that people's opinions differ...

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[D_W]

I doubt much with router planes has to do with collectors. I've met a lot of "collectors" around here who have accumulated hundreds of planes in the last several decades (before they became popular and were more than a dollar or two at estate sales), in one case, a coworker's grandfather had 1600.

I've never seen anyone collecting router planes, and I didn't see any left in his piles after public sale (decade ago), but there were hundreds of forlorn bench planes that didn't sell at a quarter each.

They're high because of Paul Sellers and his videos. That's it. Just like miter boxes went from a $50 flea market commonality to people paying $350 for clean millers falls miter box and saw when Chris Schwarz said they were an important tool to have (what would he know? His opinion of necessary tools changes with the season).

If I didn't use mine (which is also relatively rare - not a great fan of how they mark up and burnish the wood surface and require you to do final surface prep after use), I'd think about selling both of them just to harvest money from them before the bubble bursts.

 

[Bodgers]

It is the same with the cheap, more modern, but ugly) Stanley plough plane (the 13-050?). I notice a few years ago he has a couple of blog entries where he writes about them as cheap 'it is all you need' alternatives. I think he mentions paying £20 or so for for one. Strangely they all seem to go for £40-60 now...

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