| Review by JLYoung | posted 279 days ago | 385 views | 1 time favorited | 4 comments |  |
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I bought this planer about a year and a half ago and it has served me very well. The cutter head lock has pretty much eliminated snipe. The only time I get it is if I try and feed a wide board though without first jointing one face. (I know this is not the proper way, but if a board is short and wide, won’t fit on my jointer and I’m taking off 1/4” I figure I can flatten it quite well by continuously flipping it around). The blades on this planer apparently aren’t meant to be sharpened but thrown away and replaced. I’ve yet to change the blades out of mine so I can’t comment on how difficult it is to do. This planer should be used with a dust collector. I used it for awhile in my basement shop without a dust collector and you end up with so many chips inside the machine that you get dimples in the wood from the blades driving the chips in. Add a dust collector and that problem dissappears.
The three knife cutter head cuts very smooth and I have very little work to do to scrape off the milling marks. I could almost put the finish on right off the planer.
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4 comments so far
MsDebbieP
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12282 posts in 700 days
posted 279 days ago
I love ours as well.. not that I have any experience with any other machine so I can’t compare.
But I figure if I can use it, it must be good :)
-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)
pashley
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389 posts in 257 days
posted 236 days ago
I was able to easily take my blades out and sharpen them. Reinstalling is a snap.
-- -Be Blessed!, Patrick
Loren
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263 posts in 188 days
posted 186 days ago
I have one of the older ones with the resharpenable blades,
which a prefer because I have a knife grinder. Mine has
a 2-knife cutterhead and knife-setting jigs that come with
it.
After several years of intermittent use (I had other planers
as well so I didn’t use this always) the feed mechanism broke.
I took the machine apart – which took a while – and discovered
a delicate sprocket had broken in half. The sprocket has
a lot of pressure put on it by this machine and it’s not
super-sturdy. The replacement part was under $10 and frankly
I’m surprised the first one lasted as long as it did.
Planer is back in service and produces nice results as long
as you respect it’s limitations. It’s a nice surface finisher
in general.
Dust collection isn’t all that great. Chips get stuck in the sides,
pile up and need to be cleaned out if you want to plane thin
stock. It’s tempting to cut holes in the plastic sides to
make cleanout easier.
Perhaps the newer ones have better dust collection.
-- http://amherstcabinets.com - also a marketing consultant with expertise in direct response marketing for woodworking and online businesses - http://COPYMATCH.COM
Denappy
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60 posts in 222 days
posted 88 days ago
I recently purchased this same machine and agree, for the price it works great with little or no adjustment out of the box. I have been really pleased with the results!
-- -=Den