driscee

where are you located? If you can find a Direct Tools outlet they carry Ridgid and Ryodi reconditioned tools.

-- Alex

The last issue of wood magazine has a good article listing all the pros and cons of a number of brands of bench top planers.

-- Mike

I would consider how much you will use your planer. I use both Ryobi and Rigid but don’t try to compare them. Rigid is much heavier built that Ryobi so my detail sander which I use very little is blue, as are my circular saw and elec. hand plane. My 1/2 drill (corder) 6” ROS oscillating sander as well as almost of my floor tools, including my planer is rigid.

-- RTB. stray animals are just looking for love

DeWalt may seem expensive but the quality is among the best. At least in my opinion. I purchased a DeWalt re-conditioned 18V cordless drill and used it for 10 years before one of the batteries went bad. I always say buy the best tool you can afford.

-- Dave from "The Sawdust Shed"

I got lucky and found a new Dewalt DW734 on sale at Lowes for $300 (inventory reduction) and couldn’t be happier. Wood magazine did a good review of several portable planers about a year ago (you should still be able to find it on line). Consider the amount of snipe produced by each unit and chip collection (these things produce tons of shavings). Look for one with self indexing blades (or you’ll spend forever aligning blades) and generally the 3 blade models plane smoother than 2 blades.

-- Greg, Severn MD