Thickness Planner Buy

I believe i just saw the ridgid 4301? Not the brand new model on sale at HD for $329. It has gotten really good reviews.

Thanks!

AJ

-- If I can do it.....so can you! -AJswoodshop

I have the PC commonly seen at Lowes. It’s a direct rebadge of its Delta cousin. All parts, including blades are interchangeable. It works fine. I bought a delta dust collector port for it which reduces the mess to near zero. See my review in the review archive.
IMO, all the smaller lunchbox planers give similar results unless you get into the pricier models that include a cutter head lock. The larger benchtop units also typically have three blade cutter heads instead of two.
All that said, the smaller planers give pretty decent results, but there is a small learning curve to using the There is a knack to setting the indeed and out feed tables and feeding the boards into the machine.

DeWalt had a jointer?

If you could get HD to take a 20% HF coupon, the R4331 at 20% off would be a nice buy IMO…so would the DW734.

Whatever you get, you’d be wise to get one with a dust chute and anti-snipe mechanism of some sort (cutterhead lock or 4-post screw design). AFAIK, the PC or the Griz don’t offer a cutterhead lock.

-- Happiness is like wetting your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth....

Yes! Dewalt made a few jointers and I have one of them. If you want to look at the jointer, go to my workshop photo’s.

Thanks
AJ

-- If I can do it.....so can you! -AJswoodshop

Checkin out your workshop out of curiosity. :)

I would grab the dewalt dw734. It’s a great, solid planer.

-- He who dies with the most tools... dies with the emptiest wallet.

Cool…learnt me something new before noon today!

-- Happiness is like wetting your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth....

My local HD has the DW 734 on sale for $359.
Might just be a local thing.
They are always reducing their selection of tools.

-- Michael :-{| Diapers and politicians both need to be changed often; and for the same reason.

If your budget is slightly expandable, I’d recommend the DW735. I see them pop up for under $500 occasionally.

You can sometimes get refurbed ones on eBay for $450.

-- "Well, at least we can still use it as firewood... maybe." - Doss

Take a HF 20% coupon to Lowes and get one of the DeWalts, thats what I did….love my DW735 even more at 20% off

Sadface here is that my local hd doesn’t sell the R4331.. They are still selling the R4330

-- My terrible signature...

Doss…a friend had the 734 and hated it…went to the 735 and loves it. I’ve battled with a Delta 13” machine for years (I seem to spend more time trying to keep the tables true to minimize snipe than I actually use it). Wood magazine rated all the “portables” not too long ago and I don’t think any of them passed the snipe test…not a big deal really other than planning on leaving some extra length on both ends to cut off.

Won’t they order an R4331 for you Alexandre?

-- Happiness is like wetting your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth....

@ Alexandre – I am not aware of a R4331, do you have a link? (I checked the rigid website but couldn’t find it) That said, at home depot I saw the R4330 on sale at close to $300 (could be a local thing). Add in a 10-20% off coupon and that can be hard to resist. However, HD usually only puts there things on clearance if they are discontinuing the model or bringing in a new one, so I believe in the existence of the R4331.

if the 735 is $300+ better than the Rigid, my guess would be that a Grizzly is $300 better than the Dewalt. So for me, I would get the Rigid or a Grizzly.

CplSteel – The R4331 is an updated version of the R4330….it adds a manual cutterhead lock that the R4330 didn’t have (the 4-post thread design is similar to the DW735’s, and it’s supposed to reduce snipe, but I don’t think Ridgid’s application worked as well as the DW735’s, so they’ve added the tried and true cutterhead lock). The R4331 also adds an internal chip impeller, which is a feature the DW735 has. Those are two fairly significant upgrades IMO.

The Grizzly 0505 benchtop has no cutterhead lock, so will be more prone to snipe. Planers are chip spitting monsters, and the DC chute is a $21 option, so figure $365 shipped with the chute. As much as I like some of the Grizzly tools, I’m not seeing much advantage with this one over the DW734 or either Ridgid

-- Happiness is like wetting your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth....