Preston Type Router?....or Tyzack...

[Argus]

Noodling around on the internet…….as one does, I noticed that a firm in America have produced a modern take on the old Preston 2500 router. Not exactly the same pattern, but close, including an optional choice of replica handles, for some reason Stanley or original Preston pattern.

Here’s what I mean:
http://www.walkemooretools.com/shop/rou ... odel-2500/

An excellent, unique router design and long overdue resurrection, in my opinion.

Now, I know that Preston went bust in 1932 or thereabouts and C & H Hampton (Record) acquired the tool side of the business. In their wisdom, Record seem to have avoided the Preston router in their inventory in favour of the Stanley pattern.

Being an avid routerist, I have several including an old Preston 1399P, which I got it, if I recall, in Penny Farthing during the’80s, when they were in Salisbury and good tools like this were still affordable.
A few years later I also came across an almost identical copy elsewhere of the Preston 1399P router, complete with three blades of varying sizes made by Joseph Tyzack, bearing the Manx 3-leg logo and finished in a vibrant Post-Office red - just like Marpes. From its packaging it could have been made at any time from the ‘30s up to the ‘50s.

The Joseph Tyzack company went through several changes in that time and what I’d like to know is when this router was in production. Were they ever part of the Marples empire?

Does anyone know more?

 

[DoctorWibble]

Hi Argus
I too wondered why no-one really picked up the Preston design. Then, some years ago, I came across a Tyzack which appeared sound but later turned out to have a twist in the sole. Enough to rock on a flat surface. It occurred to me that the open frame casting might be prone to such faults. If so a high reject rate might be one reason the premium manufacturers of the day preferred the Stanley pattern.

 

[bugbear]

Noodling around on the internet…….as one does, I noticed that a firm in America have produced a modern take on the old Preston 2500 router. Not exactly the same pattern, but close, including an optional choice of replica handles, for some reason Stanley or original Preston pattern.

Here’s what I mean:
http://www.walkemooretools.com/shop/rou ... odel-2500/

An excellent, unique router design and long overdue resurrection, in my opinion.

And Paul Sellers too; I suspect he may be the (possibly indirect) driving force behind this.

I was always rather amused to see him using and recommending a rather rare/collectible router, given his proclaimed ethos.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

I can't add much, but here's a little more info on the Preston 1399P and 2500P.

Acording to Mark Rees's research in the reprint of the 1909 Preston catalogue, the 1399 was patented in 1907. It appeared in an addendum of new tools added to the 1909 catalogue, alongside the 2500P. The 1399P was 5s 6d. The 2500P was 7s 6d. (For comparison, the simpler 1397 design was ony 2s 6d. )

That price - 7s 6d - was a significant sum. Elsewhere in the same catalogue you can see that it was the price for the complicated no 1369 double side rebate plane, with the twin threaded adjusters. It was enough to buy a bullnose or shoulder plane at the cheaper end of the size options. A best quality wooden smoothing plane was only about 4s.

Jumping ahead to 1925 and the Melhuish catalogue (which I think gives mail order retail prices) the 2500P was listed at 16s 6d - still twice the price of a best quality wooden smoother or 6d less than an imported Stanley No 5 bench plane.

So, I think it's probably safe to say that although I haven't found the Stanley and the Preston alongside each other in the same catalogue, the big complicated Preston router would always have been an expensive option compared to the Stanley. It didn't take long for copies of the Stanley pattern to be widely available, from Record and Marples in the UK and various makers in the US including Millers Falls and Sargent.

And although it seems nice to have the option of swapping the cutters and knobs round into different positions, for most workers, most of the time, the simple, robust No 71 design is all that is ever needed, so it sold well and the dearer designs were not worth putting on the market. That said, if anyone offered me one, I would gratefully accept it!

As for the question of a link between the Tyzacks and the Marples, as far as I know there was none. There's a lot more research by descendants of the Tyzacks looking into their family history. If you go to their genealogy site here

http://tyzack.net/downloadoath.htm

and download Chapter 16 of The Book, it gives a summary of the related Tyzack companies - I can't see a direct connection, but the history of toolmaking in Sheffield is a succession of mergers and acquisitions, so there could be a link there, maybe through the Turner family.

 

[Argus]

Hi Argus
I too wondered why no-one really picked up the Preston design. Then, some years ago, I came across a Tyzack which appeared sound but later turned out to have a twist in the sole. Enough to rock on a flat surface. It occurred to me that the open frame casting might be prone to such faults. If so a high reject rate might be one reason the premium manufacturers of the day preferred the Stanley pattern.

Well, you may have been unlucky there.
I'm glad to say that my old Preston (which must be about 100 years old, from the production dates) and the newer Tyzack are both dead falt in the sole department. If anything, the Tyzack 'feels' a little better when working, but they're both regularly in service up here in the wilderness. I find that these routers are invaluable for working the tenon depth from the face side where it needs to align exactly with the face side of the mortise piece because the full length of the sole sits on the board with no rocking while the end-mounted cutter can approach the grain end-on, providing a tenon cheek dead parallel with the face side. I'm sure that it can be done as cross-strokes with conventional routers, but to my way of thinking I prefer the full length sole sitting on the board.

Andy:
Thank you for your input. I was never sure if there was a tie-up between Hampton/Record, Marples and Tyzack before the war, as between them they seemed to share a design or two. I was actually trying to establish if the Tyzack variant was offered pre-war, later on in the 1950s or both.

One thing that I noticed about my very old Preston, in passing, is that in all the pictures and catalogue extracts that I have seen, the cutter is square and mounted in a square groove in the cutter pillar. It's the same with the red Tyzack router too. Alternatively, the Record/Stanley types mount the cutter in a Vee-form on the pillar; my old Preston also mounts its cutter in the Vee shape, which means that standard Preston cutters won't fit and it's the only one that I've seen made that way.

All best.