A router is a woodworking tool used to rout out (hollow out) an area in the face of a piece of wood. It was a tool particularly used by pattern makers and staircase makers and consisted of a broad-based wooden hand plane with a narrow blade projecting well beyond its base plate gaining it the nickname Old Woman's Tooth. Since about 1960, it has been replaced by the modern spindle router, which was designed for the same work, although the first electric hand routers appeared in the years just after World War I. Further refinement produced the plunge router, invented by Elu (now part of deWalt) in Germany in the late 1940s. This is even better adapted for many types of work. Today, traditional hand-powered routers are often called router planes. Modern routers are often used in place of traditional moulding planes or spindle moulder machines for edge decoration (moulding) of timber.
