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I picked up a 1960's Rockwell electric planer off Ebay because it came with the grinding jig and (2) carbon steel cutters (both chipped in multiple places). This is not one of the purpose-built planes, but its own standalone attachment that you slide a router motor into. This was sold as a combined router & planer kit, but while this came with the original steel box the router base was missing.
The case must have been left outside because every unpainted aluminum component of the jig was completely sandy white from corrosion buildup and it was seized up. I got it disassembled and cleaned up though and clean/repacked the router bearings.
The planer attachment body is beautifully set up for adjustment as the cutter is sharpened and gradually reduces in depth. One one side of the attachment is a lever that adjust the shoe depth; on the other a lever that adjusts the motor position to adjust the motor/cutter height as it is ground down by repeated sharpening.
The fence is full length, has notched gradations for angle of rotation, and a set screw-locked adjustment backstop to hit a perfect angle after adjustment. To my surprise, though, given the era of manufacture, the gradations for the angle were off by about 3/32" when I checked the fence at 90 degrees with a square.
The jig sharpened each spiral of the cutter evenly with itself, but someone must have dropped it because it has noticeable runout and one spiral ended up ground about 1/64" deeper than the other. Next time I sharpen I'll just make more passes on the higher side.
I thought I'd highlight this because the purpose-built Model 167, 126 and Model 653 are common on Ebay, but this was the only one of the old router-planer kits I saw for Rockwell/Porter-Cable. After some more looking through photos of Ebay listings, the attachment body is identical for the router-planer kit and the Model 126, but the motor and cutter are different.
This router-planer kit uses a cutter with permanent threads on one end that screws into the router collet. The Model 126 uses a hollow-bore cutter that slides onto a threaded shank that in turn screws into the motor collet. I can't confirm if the motors share the same collet and if the cutter/shank would be interchangeable.
Ebay has a few of the Model 126 cutters for sale but the cutter for the router-planer kit has disappeared from the planet. You basically must have the sharpening jig if you find one of these used in the wild.
On a tangent, I only picked this up after a failure with a Black and Decker 1950's-1960's router-planer attachment I nearly bought through Facebook Marketplace. The Black and Decker cutter does not have threads, but a 3/8" shank that tightens in the router collet. I showed up with one of the homeowner-grade 1/4" routers to test its fit and was unpleasantly surprised. I've never encountered a 3/8" collet vintage Black and Decker router before and the seller only had the attachment.
The case must have been left outside because every unpainted aluminum component of the jig was completely sandy white from corrosion buildup and it was seized up. I got it disassembled and cleaned up though and clean/repacked the router bearings.
The planer attachment body is beautifully set up for adjustment as the cutter is sharpened and gradually reduces in depth. One one side of the attachment is a lever that adjust the shoe depth; on the other a lever that adjusts the motor position to adjust the motor/cutter height as it is ground down by repeated sharpening.
The fence is full length, has notched gradations for angle of rotation, and a set screw-locked adjustment backstop to hit a perfect angle after adjustment. To my surprise, though, given the era of manufacture, the gradations for the angle were off by about 3/32" when I checked the fence at 90 degrees with a square.
The jig sharpened each spiral of the cutter evenly with itself, but someone must have dropped it because it has noticeable runout and one spiral ended up ground about 1/64" deeper than the other. Next time I sharpen I'll just make more passes on the higher side.
I thought I'd highlight this because the purpose-built Model 167, 126 and Model 653 are common on Ebay, but this was the only one of the old router-planer kits I saw for Rockwell/Porter-Cable. After some more looking through photos of Ebay listings, the attachment body is identical for the router-planer kit and the Model 126, but the motor and cutter are different.
This router-planer kit uses a cutter with permanent threads on one end that screws into the router collet. The Model 126 uses a hollow-bore cutter that slides onto a threaded shank that in turn screws into the motor collet. I can't confirm if the motors share the same collet and if the cutter/shank would be interchangeable.
Ebay has a few of the Model 126 cutters for sale but the cutter for the router-planer kit has disappeared from the planet. You basically must have the sharpening jig if you find one of these used in the wild.
On a tangent, I only picked this up after a failure with a Black and Decker 1950's-1960's router-planer attachment I nearly bought through Facebook Marketplace. The Black and Decker cutter does not have threads, but a 3/8" shank that tightens in the router collet. I showed up with one of the homeowner-grade 1/4" routers to test its fit and was unpleasantly surprised. I've never encountered a 3/8" collet vintage Black and Decker router before and the seller only had the attachment.
