Any one have any opinion as to the purchase of a stationary planer(20 inches or larger), as I am considering getting one. I currently own a 12 inch delta.
I have a Dewalt planer and would love to go to a monster plane if I could afford it and if I had the room in my shop. I ended up resorting to hand planes and a little sweat to bring wide boards to size. Good Luck and let us know if you take the plunge.
I recently bought a Shop Fox 20", spiral head model 1718. It is the older model made in Taiwan in, I believe, an ISO 9001 factory. They are being closed out as the current model is now being made in China. I got mine for $1895 (US) from a local dealer. I saw them online for that price,also. The one I bought was made in December 2006. If you look closely at the components they are identical to the Powermatic and Jet, so I assume they were made in the same factory.
I've had it for a few weeks now and I must say it is a beast but with finesse. I glued up some 19"x55" poplar panels for a chest I'm building and ran them through to smooth out the glue lines. The finish was very smooth so I only needed some light sanding. I just today ran some 1/2" stock for drawer sides through it with very light passes. Again, not much sanding needed. I am fighting a little snipe at the end so I'm still making adjustments.
I worked with a DeWalt 733 for the past 9 years so this was quite a step for me but I' so glad I did it. I had looked at nothing but 15" models for the past 2 years when this deal came along. I finally decided bigger is better since sometimes I am dealing with panels over 15". I had to accomodate the 5 hp motor with some heavier wiring but I had the space in my breaker box to do it. I now need a cyclone chip collector for my dust collect as it does produce a lot of chips.
I would love a big 20" but I think the extra money spent over the 15" would be money better spent elsewhere. Nothing I ever do requires more then 15" width and on occassion when we have to do a desk top that is wide we just use the wide sander.
A wide panel sander would be great but I don't have room for that, maybe what I need is a bigger shop as well!!!!!
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