Help me pick a router plane.

[Sundowner]

either Lee Valley or Lie Nielsen make good planes. I wouldn't waste your time chasing down a used Stanley, but that's me.

I WOULD NOT buy the Lee Valley small router plane. the round shank on the blade can turn while working. it's infuriating.

[rschissler]

Phil S. said:

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Let me add to the confusion. Like most of the guys here I have LV router planes. One thing they offer unique to their line is medium sized plane.



I find it useful for tasks on smaller work like inletting hinges on the edge of a door where a big router is more difficult to juggle and a small router doesn't seem to have enough oomph. The big plane would let you use a little more gusto flattening the bottom of your dados in sheet stock though. Blades for the big and medium are interchangeable and range in width from 1/16" to 3/4" and metric sizes as well.

One gripe against the small LV router is the round shaft on the blades. They like to turn when your pushing them. The Lie Nielsen small router and the Stanley 271 have square shafts that prevent them from turning in their bases. You can grind flats on the shaft of the LV blade to resolve the problem, but you don't need to on the Stanley or LN.

On all of the LV planes you can turn the blade 180° and go from a closed throat to an open/bullnose setup giving you the best of both worlds. You can see pics of this on the LV website. I'm not familiar with the LN plane so I don't know if that may be an option there or not.

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Phil described it best here! I would go with the LN small or LV medium. I have the LN small open throat and it has worked well for the few times I used it. The LV medium is fairly new, but looks great for those considering a larger plane.

[ruffcutt]

Thanks for ever ones input it helps.

[fall]

The question asked was “Help me pick a router plane” and I think there have been a lot of great responses. If reviewing to buy a new plane and you were looking at getting one of the planes with multiple blades what blades are most used or would be most recommended?

[Steve N]

fall said:

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If reviewing to buy a new plane and you were looking at getting one of the planes with multiple blades what blades are most used or would be most recommended?

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I got the LV router It comes with 1/2 straight and spear point. I only added the 3/4" blade as I think for cleaning trash out of a plywood cut at + - 3/4" it will have great utility. I have to check it against my Dado fit for the undersized 3/4" figure and it's possible I may need to grind the side a schooch so it fit's the undersized 3/4" Dado's. Plywood being how it is, a series of layers, and depending on the plywood and a depth of 3/8" + - you frequently get to the end of a ply, and what's left in the groove has a lot of trash. My thought is I'll use it on that more than anything. Usually on hardwood I do ok with just the dado blade.

I also got the fence version, and added a handle kit, which on the LV is an unknown, but on 71's I have seen more than a handful of them with fractured, or missing handles. So for a few $$$ it's a built in insurance policy, but the fact they sell it tells me they have seen some broken handles too

All those tiny blades? I know where to find them if I ever need them

[cad]

I'll 2nd the Lee Valley recommendations. They also have an attachment to use the router plane blades on their jig if I'm not mistaken.