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• Drywall routers spin very, very fast and use a small spiral-cutting bit to zip through plaster wallboard. This material is very soft (you can drill through it with a screwdriver), so guiding the router is easy. It’s not a precision tool, but fine for cutting holes for outlets, ceiling lights, etc.

• As parents of toddles can tell you, there is a particular brand of wooden toy train that is very nice, and very over-priced. If your toddler needs a hundred feet of toy track and you don’t want to pay retail for it, you can make your own using this set of router bits, which cuts the track, and the ball-and-socket joints between segments of track.

• Routers come in a range of sizes, from multi-horsepower monsters that can be quite intimidating, down to delicate little things used to trim off laminate edges or make small dovetail joints.

• I got this router at an auction to replace an identical one that was stolen decades earlier.

• The fanciest possible router: it has a computer vision system and small servo motors that guide the tip precisely along a programmed path, even if you move the handles in an irregular way.

• Very large router bits are best used in combination with a router table, or in a more substantial tooled called a shaper. In a hand-held router they can be too violent.

• Router Bits

• Router Bits

• This is like a power awl: it scratches with a tungsten carbide tip, which is being vibrated rapidly to make it scratch even more. The idea is to write your name on your tools so whoever steals them can feel bad about it in a more personally connected way.

• Milwaukee Router

• Router

• Router

• There are countless shapes of router bit available, from general-purpose rounding-over bits to complex fancy edge profiles to specialized patterns for joint-making. Some router bits have a small ball bearing either above or below the cutting blades. This allows you to guide the tool along the edge of a piece of wood (curved or straight) without needing a separate template. This is useful for rounding over edges or trimming laminates.

• Toy train wheels for track made with a special set of router bits.

• Circle cutting jig for router.

• Not sure if this is a shaper blade or not.

• Router

Do you have a better example of this kind of tool? Let me know by leaving a comment, and include a picture of it if you can so everyone can see!