Our friend the Tinker found an old (’70’s?) Craftsman (Sears) router and router table in his garage sale wanderings and sold it to me for $10.

I have been looking at it. The router table seemed rather cheap and flimsy. While I understand the concept of a router table this does not seem to be adequate. Furthermore, it is not possible to change bits without removing the core of the router. So I unscrewed the router from the table:

It seems perfectly usable. The motor does work. It needs some basic cleaning, but that is simple enough.

This is the first electric router to enter my shop. I have two old Stanley router planes, a 271 and a 71:

They are effective, easy, and fun to use, though nowhere near as versatile as their modern (well, sort of) counterpart. I can use the old and the new.