The sole of a router plane references off the face of your board. The blade is parallel to, but well below the sole. While capable of creating a groove, its primary use has historically been adjustment, rather than creation. It’s the right tool to clean up or extend the bottom of dadoes, grooves and rabbets. But most router planes have crude depth of cut adjustment. Getting the depth exactly where you want it can be frustrating.On Woodpeckers new Router Plane, the thumb wheel to adjust depth of cut has a feature that virtually eliminates backlash, getting you to your desired depth of cut quickly and with minimal frustration.

If you look at old router planes, you’ll soon notice that in most cases, one was not enough. The sole always seemed to interfere somewhere, so Stanley and its competitors would make another variant that solved one problem at a time.Woodpeckers addressed the problem from the jump by starting with a large (3-1/2″ x 8-1/2″) sole, then building in three different positions for the blade mechanism. At each position, the blade mechanism can be mounted facing in or facing out. And at cutting depth, the blade can be rotated in the mechanism in 4 different directions. You always have a way to keep the sole flat on your work, get your blade into tight corners and cut with the blade working with the grain instead of against it. The handles mount in the remaining two positions, keeping everything balanced and comfortable.