Tenon Router

[harry strasil]

This is my Tenon Router I use when finishing tenons on dimensioned lumber. Its a very easy way to get a tenon surface flat and parallel with the main body of the piece. You can work a long tenon quite easily and accurately also.

parts view. (quarter is for size comparison)


bottom view.


In use view.


I use it by holding the long side in a more or less fixed position and moving the left side back and forth to slice the tenon to size. The skew angle cutter works well across the grain. Its very easy to tap the cutter down and slice just a wee bit off the tenon. It also works very well for wide dado cuts when undercutting for lap joints in the middle of a board.

[Brett Baldwin]

That looks like a right handed model. How prevalent was this sort of specialized tool back in its day? I can see how it would be extremely useful for this work but the cutter looks like something that would have been custom made for this. Did woodworkers just develop relationships with smiths for these specialized blades?

[harry strasil]

Well Brett, I am mostly right handed. I don't really know if they had anything like this back in the old days or not, this is one I built as I had a use for it.

Blacksmiths did make most of the iron tools for the other trades as well as their own back before the industrial revolution, and as I am a full time Blacksmith, making the iron and brass parts for my tools is not a problem. I used to have a couple of old tool collectors that I did repairs for on old tools and made missing cutters etc. If old tools are repaired the same way they would have been back when, it doesn't seem to deter the price of them.

Hand tool woodworking is my hobby, I don't get as black, as hot, nor do I get many burns from woodworking. LOL

[Brett Baldwin]

Ahh..I see. I thought that it was a vintage tool though I should have known seeing all your other work. So you just wanted more stability than the router planes like the Stanley offered?

[harry strasil]

yes, with my stanley 71 router and my shop made router I did not have enough support to do a good job, The solution was easy, just make a router that would work for what I wanted to do, didn't take all the long to make.