I am, by no means, the expert on mini-router planes, but I do have a few here in the Fort Worth Armadillo Works. They are very handy for flattening the bottom of hinge mortises and other small work. Hopefully, some readers will find the various styles and types of mini-routers to be of interest. Although there are many small wooden router planes which are often called by other names (old woman’s tooth, hag’s tooth, etc.), this page is devoted to the metal versions, and I have used the terms “router”, “router plane”, “mini-router”, etc., interchangeably.

Router Planes 101

First a few words about what a router plane is and what it is not. On this web site, a router is NOT a tailed demon capable of spinning a cutter at thousands of revolutions per second. According to Al Sellens’ Dictionary of Hand Tools, a router is “a tool used to cut a flat-bottomed groove or pattern in a flat surface”. According to Salaman’s Dictionary of Tools, a router plane is a tool used “for routing out a depression in the surface of the work”. According to Blackburn’s Woodworking Handtools Instruments & Devices, “the router was originally designed to smooth the bottoms of grooves or any depression below the surface of the work…”

For our purposes, it is a small hand tool consisting of a base with a flat bottom, a cutter (blade) capable of slicing wood in a depression or groove, and a method of holding the cutter in position to maintain a depth of cut. Larger, commercially made routers often have a method incorporated for making fine adjustments to the depth of cut, but I do not know of any of the smaller (mini) routers that have this feature.

Here are a few of my early acquisitions in a picture taken some time ago – before the “accumulation” started to grow.

And here is my version of a router table.

Here are a few on display at a South West Tool Collectors Association (SWTCA) meeting a couple of years ago – in my “traveling router plane kit”.

This is a favorite. It is an aluminum router by an unknown maker – just marked “Patent Pending”. It is very ornate. It is a little too large to be considered a mini (7-11/16” x 2-1/2”), but I included it anyway, because I like it.

Here is another unusual favorite. It is a small Preston router – No. 1397P. It is 4-1/8” x 2-1/8”.

The cutter can be mounted in the center position, or you can remove either of the handles and mount the cutter in its place – as shown below.