What’s in a Name?
The hand router, not it’s electric namesake, has become the woodworking tool du jour. It’s not a tool I’ve had a great deal of experience with over the past 26 years. When I learned my trade the practice was to use the chisel and saw to form most of the joints. If long repetitive housings are required in a professional workshop such as stair strings, an electric router is used. But a nice hand router is no bad thing.
Most of today’s hand routers draw their DNA from a Stanley No.71. But it fair to say both Lie-Nielsen and especially Lee Valley have added unique changes to a discontinued tool and made them useful. But I was interested to know when the word “Router” started to be used. Was the tool name router used in old workshops? From my very limited research the word started to be used from 1890’s climbing a little up until the late 1970’s when it really takes off!
Perhaps it’s reasonable to assume that our cast metal friend’s name began being uttered in workshops from the 1890’s and beyond the the 70’s we’re so wrapped up with electric routers and then computer routers that surround us now that the data is not helpful. There is also the the brutally named forbear of the router we know as “The Old Woman’s Tooth”. This is the naming that really interests me! Why was it specifically an old woman’s tooth? Didn’t us guys have bad teeth back in days of yore?
Here’s a proposal. Old animals, including us humans suffer the incisor teeth collapsing outward reminiscent of the cutter shown on “The Old Woman’s Tooth”. It's far less common thing to see in many people now thanks to better diet, better oral hygiene & modern dentistry, but not that uncommon in the veterinary world. And the reason for the gender bias is simple - women tended to live far longer than men & thus more likely to develop such age-related conditions!
Credit to that last paragraph goes to “IWW” for the UK Workshop Forum. Hugely insightful and as good a reason as any as to the reason of the name “Old Woman’s Tooth”. But if you have an old router and want to go easy on Granny, there’s and option thanks to Matt Groening, “Gummy Joe”