Advanced Routing by Roy Sutton 

Not a problem, I just hope whoever owns the copyright doesn't mind/care. It would be nice to get the rest of the videos up on RU-vid for everyone to appreciate, I'm trying to keep an eye out for "Safe Wood Machining", "Making Routing Jigs and Gadgets", and "Developing the Router Workshop" but so far haven't found any copies. The Spindle Moulder video is already on RU-vid so no real need to find that one.

Roy Sutton really was a pioneer, he was doing these instructional videos back when it was extraordinarily hard to do so as high-quality camera gear, microphones, lighting, having VHS tapes made and such was very expensive back then, unlike today where you can use your phone and simply record a high-quality video and upload it to RU-vid and have a possible audience of millions across the world rather than quite a small pool of British hobbyist woodworkers. I recently read his rather rare autobiography and he was an interesting fellow although quite clearly very introverted and definitely not a socialite, he had a life of adversity in his early years where his father suddenly died when he was a boy and so he was shipped off to a boarding school for fatherless boys and had a very bad experience, when he got out of there and went back home his mother had become a dire alchoholic after her husband had died so homelife wasn't very pleasant either but he notes he did get along with his mother most of the time but swore off drinking because of it. He had a hard time trying to get a foothold in the woodworking craft as there were very few jobs about at this time during the great depression in the 30s so he settled for various unrelated jobs earning where he could. It wasn't until the Second World War broke out where he joined the RAF as a trainee carpenter in North Africa mainly, working on various constructions and eventually on aircraft. When he came back he was able to find work as a Joiner but he was still largely an unskilled woodworker and in his mid-late twenties and so wasn't the most appealing apprentice to take on but he did find work and prove himself as a good pair of hands, eventually working up to high positions wherever he worked and eventually going it alone and starting his own business. Regarding the breathing protection, it was a very different time then to what it is now and I don't believe they quite knew how bad the chemicals in man-made boards or wood in general could be, although Roy does advocate a mask in his "Basic Routing" video, it is interesting he doesn't use on in this one.

@@WoodMachinist very interesting info. What a life. To be honest I'm surprised they use ear protection.

If I ever come across a time machine that can take me back 30 years, I'll be sure to tell Roy when he's recording the video that he needs to show the setting up of the bits. 😂

It depends on what part of the world you're in, I don't think they're particularly common in America but here in Britain they're as common as dirt and are just as cheap, nobody really wants them anymore. They are a very rapid machine for batch production, as shown in the video, but they've largely been superseded by CNC machines for that kind of work now.

We still use them in our cabinetry shop. It is basically an upside down router table. Router tables can't do some of the things the overhead can do and vice versa. Our overhead has a sliding compound table (like a metal milling machine). Also a pin that raises from the table to act as a centre point for creating circles. They are great for pattern making, and grooving drawers and such, and quicker to set up then spindle moulders. Also the health and safety officers are never a big fan of them as they can be quite hard to guard, whilst also showing the cut.

@@CA-gy4qf Nice to hear that there are still people out there that get regular use out of them, I would wager than 95% of woodworkers here in Britain wouldn't know how to operate one.

@@WoodMachinist couple of years ago I worked at Lawrence and Macintosh in Edinburgh, Scotland, that was the first time I used overhead router. Not overly impressed to be honest. But I'm glad I had a chance to use it at least once in my life.

@@laius6047 Look up "Saw Handle Maker - Dougie Pope" by the Ken Hawley Collection on RU-vid to see a good example of a overhead router in use in a production environment, the amount of material it could remove is absurd. There's also a silent film out there somewhere from WW2 in a furniture factory turned Lee Enfield rifle stock factory where there is some great overhead router work going on to make the stocks as rapidly as possible.