A router plane is basically a small chisel held in a frame with the chisel able to be raised or lowered. A large flat base offers great support for hogging out the bottoms of joints, and for making inlays and tuning tenon cheeks. A router plane is a great tool and a favourite of mine to use.
Early router planes were called an ‘old womans tooth’ with a protruding blade that was wedged in a block of wood. Usually shop made by the maker, some were quite sophisticated.
Later in the 1800s metal-bodied panes appeared from manufacturers such as Stanley, Record and Preston. Record and Stanley both called their similar looking models the 071.
Today we have other brands of router planes such as Lie-Nielsen and Veritas, both of whom make excellent industry standard planes.
The mechanical issue with a router plane is holding the blade and allowing vertical rise and fall. The Lie-Nielsen and Veritas tools have the blade bevel-up and vertically mounted, secured in a
