Reply To: Stanley No 71 Hand Router
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Paul filmed a video on making one. It might be on the DVD which came with his book, but they’re quite straightforward.
A wooden sole/sub-base improves glide significatly. You can wax it too. You also have the added advantage of screwing a decent fence to a wooden sole – if you’re going to use it as a plough plane. Much more practical than that 1″ affair Stanley provided.
The 71s and 071s weren’t always machined accurately after casting and, if seldom-used, were never properly fettled by their previous owners. I have seven. All were slightly wonky.
Before you make your base:
Check the iron is seated vertically. Check with an engineer’s square. It should be cutting squarely (full-width) at all depths. Sometimes it’s a sharpening issue, sometimes the vertical channel needs filing slightly. Search Mitch Peacock on YouTube.
You can flatten the sole as Mitch does. I wouldn’t; it’ll ruin the nickel plating if you have any left. You’ll have a flat new wooden sole anyway.
Check also that your threaded screw-post is vertical, especially where the iron’s screwed further down. My Record 071 had a slight curve to the screw-post which only became apparent when the iron was lowered further to pass through the wooden base.
You could end up chasing-your-tail; adjusting the thickness of your base to compensate for poor alignment, only have it all out of whack again when the wooden base is removed.
File a slight chamfer on the leading and trailing edges of the wooden sole; as you would on the toe & heel of a smoothing plane.
One of my gripes with the Stanley 71 is the lateral grooves on the sole for the fence. No wonder a wooden sole improves things. What were they thinking? Amazingly, others went and copied them – grooves and all!