Did They Have Routers In Ye Olde Days?

[Mickguard]

I was thinking of something today...did Fender and Gibson have routers 50 years ago? I'm assuming they did...but I'm wondering what kind of machinery they used way back when to make their guitars? How much was made using hand tools?

Just a 'floater' that drifted through my thought pool just as I was diving into my afternoon nap....

[bigdguitars]

Large Pin routers. I have an onsrud pin router that was made in the 50s

[Calum_Barrow]

Yes, they'll have had routers but not as we know them. They'll have had most of the tools you'll use, if not all of them (cept for Dremels if you use those). The workshop I use comprises almost entirely of pre-50's equipment (only hand power tools are really the modern things, and chisels and saws and such). Circular saws, Radial arm saws, drill press, planer among others.

Edited January 10, 2006 by Calum_Barrow

[sepultura999]

My grandfather gave me some of his old popular mechanics mags to look at from the mid to late 50s and there are pictures of handheld routers.

-Jamie

Edited January 13, 2006 by sepultura999

[bvalentine]

This guy uses only hand drills (not electric) and chisels:

Of course this guy is building a lap-steel, but it's the same principle.

I would imagine that when Les Paul and Leo Fender built their first they did it like this. Expensive pin routers are usually not sitting around your average mr-fix-it shop. Actually, I'd bet anything that they did it like this for the first few prototypes.

There is nothing wrong with doing it like this (if you're handy with chisels). IMO this would be better for the novice who has never used a router. Routers can be EVIL!!! They'll turn on you like a pitbull on crack. The old fasion hand drills & chisels arent gonna run away from you or rip big chuncks out of your tone-wood. Also, they are rather rewarding so use.

[Supernova9]

This guy uses only hand drills (not electric) and chisels:

I would imagine that when Les Paul and Leo Fender built their first they did it like this. Expensive pin routers are usually not sitting around your average mr-fix-it shop. Actually, I'd bet anything that they did it like this for the first few prototypes.

There is nothing wrong with doing it like this (if you're handy with chisels). IMO this would be better for the novice who has never used a router. Routers can be EVIL!!! They'll turn on you like a pitbull on crack. The old fasion hand drills & chisels arent gonna run away from you or rip big chuncks out of your tone-wood. Also, they are rather rewarding so use.

Martin Koch (the guy who's site that is) uses power tools like anyone else. His ebook contains a nice router jig for scarf-cutting.

As for your comments about routers, I disagree. I find them perfectly useable, far too many people on here seem to think routers have a mind of their own, but I think maybe that's because they're being used incorrectly (bad feed rate, too aggressive a cut etc). I'll agree with the hand tools being more rewarding - I feel like I've done 'proper' work if I've used a handplane to level something.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Supernova9

[bvalentine]

Martin Koch (the guy who's site that is) uses power tools like anyone else.

I don't mean to quible with you, but for that particular project he uses manual hand tool all the way through. http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/tools4.htm

and the router thing was just an opinion.

[Mattia]

I love my chisels, japanese saws, scrapers, rasps, etc, but there's just no way I'm ever going to get rid of my routers. Can they be dangerous? Sure. If used dangerously, if pushed beyond their capacity, etc. Are they more likely to rip chunks out of stuff? Only marginally so. Learn to use it properly, use bits the right size, take appropriate bits.

Honestly, a newbie is more likely to get things to work right with a router than with hand tools, simply because it takes practice and more feel to use edge tools properly, including sharpening, technique, etc. Rasps are idiot proof in terms of use, but are the ONLY tools I regularly nick myself with.

[Doeringer]

Well of course they did. It just took one technician to pedal (a.k.a. The Gilligan's Island Method)

[Mattia]

A thought: solidbody guitars? Recent. Large-scale wood machining, including routing, trimwork, etc.? Victorian technology, mostly. With some updates.