Handheld power planers - useful?

Hi Josh.. I can’t be of any help with this but I did notice that the question has gone past without any replies. Perhaps bringing it to the top of the PULSE will catch someone’s attention.

and welcome to LJ :)

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Josh,

I purchased a power hand planer once and while I’m sure there’s a good use for it, I could not find it. I tried it and couldn’t get a useable surface for the life of me. So, I set it on the shelf and it’s been there for the last few years collecting dust.

-- Working at Woodworking http://www.VillageLaneFurniture.com

They are really great for taking a little off the edge of a door after you have all you can to move the jamb around with screws etc…. They are also fantastic if you can get your sharpener guy to cut curves into your planer blades for doing distressing of beams, cabinetry and floors… For jointing something…. your reference plane is so small for what surface you are usually working with relative to how much wood they can take off in a pass that they are in my opinion dangerous for woodworking… (to the wood)

Drew

-- Drew, Pleasant Grove, Utah

Any chance there’s a friend – acquaintance – co-worker with a shop that would work with you in getting your wood in shape?

How about a junior college or maybe the small chance that your local high school still has a shop program? perhaps for a small fee, you could go in – get a little training from the teacher and use the machines for dimensioning your wood.

A local Woodcraft, Shopsmith or Rockler store may be aware of a woodworking coop where machines are shared by woodworkers who join the coop as members.

I would first look towards the route of “borrowing” time in someone’s shop or using machines for a small fee before I would tackle planing and joining by hand. If you’re looking at using a hand plane to get your wood smooth and square – you’re a long way from building anything and you could get discouraged real fast. I have a sizeable collection of hand planes and I find hand work very enjoyable to “fine-tune” an edge or joint and for joinery but for getting rough boards flat and square, a chore that consumes too much time that I want to be using building something. I could load up some wood, take it to someone’s machines and get back home in a shorter amount of time than I would use flattening and squaring wood by hand with a plane. I’m sure I could get very proficient if I chose to spend my time on it, but I haven’t – not for flatttening and squaring.

-- Paul, Texas

I have a powered hand planer as well, and other than edges, I have not been able to get something level with it. Even when it is dialed to zero, it will still cut off at least 1/32 of an inch. The main problem has been with wide boards. The planer is only about 3 inches wide. So when you plane a board, you have to overlap. This usually causes one side to be higher or lower than the other. By the time you get the entire width planed down, it can be off quite a bit. Not to mention the snipe the thing causes.

I would save my money towards getting a jointer or planer instead. Ridgid jointers and planers run less than $400 each, and are pretty good. TomFran had an extensive question/answer session on planers when he was looking.

If you like hand planes, then you can go that route too. I have not had much success with hand planes, so I will try to go the power route. While I would love to use the hand plane, that just does not seem to work out.

One more thing to consider is a belt sander. That will take down the wood pretty fast, and give you good results. I have used belt sanders much more successfully than the powered hand planer.

Good luck.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

I think you would treat it as a coarse wood removal tool similar to a scrub plane or a Jack plane configured for rough work.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I’ve had a hand held power plane for 15 years. Used it two or three times on door edges.

-- Bruce from Central New York

If you had to, you could get it done with hand planes. That is after you learned to sharpen and tune them. You do need to learn this but….....I would see if a local cabinet shop might surface your boards.The dealer where I’ve been buying lumber has a milling shop. He will surface and straight edge if you want. Woodcraft stores usuallly have classes and have a full shop. They can help you I’m sure. Every once in a while I hand plane the surface of a board just to remember how great it is to have a planer and jointer. It also keeps my hand in, just in case.

-- Thos. Angle

First, thanks MsDebbieP for bumping this for me :)

As an update, I was out yardsale’ing (okay, okay, I know that’s not right, but “yardsaling” doesn’t look right either), and I found a jack plane and a block plane that I picked up. While I was out, I went by this odd tool place that was almost like a Harbor Freight, but more like a warehouse than a retail store. I decided to pick up a sharpening stone and a $30 electric hand planer. I got home and read the manual for the electric planer, which appears to have been written in some foreign language first, and then literally translated into English. So, I was “very careful not hand blade touch”, as the manual advised, and tried it out. My experience was exactly what everyone else seems to already know :) Lots of sniping, can’t really get anything even across the surface of the boards, nice ridges all along the surface … so I put it back in the box and on the shelf. Eventually I may find a use for it.

Next, I tried the handplanes. I sharpened the plane blades, which actually worked out pretty well, but by the time I was done, there was noticeable cupping on the stone, so I guess I need to flatten this thing before I use it again (and would appreciate advice on how best to do so!). It took a lot of time before I was even able to get any material to come off the boards, but eventually I was able to start getting a feel for it. Since the reason I got these boards was to play around with and try to learn some techniques with anyway (I got them for free from a neighborhood woodworker who had cut up a maple tree and had a lot of boards not suitable to really make anything out of), it’s been good practice. I’m still not convinced I’m even close to being able to plane and joint a board with hand planes, but I’ll keep playing and I’ll get there eventually.

In the meantime, I’ll probably take some of the advice given here and see if I can find a person/place where I can use some power tools. I really like Paul’s suggestion, finding a shop that I might be able to get some instruction on how to best use the tools before I actually use them. I took shop classes in high school, and learned how to use a router, drill press, sanders, etc., but the planer and jointer were not even in the room … I guess the teacher did the dimensioning himself elsewhere. I’ve watched lots of podcasts since I decided to start woodworking again (I loved it in school, not sure why it took me 14 more years to get back to it), but I’ve figured out from my hand plane experience that watching Matt and Marc (and many others) make stuff look easy, doesn’t mean it’s really easy :)

-- "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan

Relative to sharpening. Do a web search on scary sharp. You basically use sandpaper on glass. Lots of good info on how to do it.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I’m new here too and would also like to thank the people who have welcomed me.

My regular job is in home repair so I have had an electric hand planer for quite awhile. I started using it on my wood projects awhile back and I’ve had good luck. First, let me say that the stuff I use it on is always large barn beams and “perfection” isn’t my goal, but I do get a fairly flat surface with a combination of planing and belt sanding, it just took some practice. Also, working with the thick beams, I usually have a fair amount of room for error. My planer is a Bosch and it costs a little more, but I gave up on cheap tools a long time ago. All and all, I would probably go with the advice to look for a shop that will plane your wood for you, I just wanted to say that they can be used with some success in the right situation. I eventually hope to have a large planer that might handle the barn wood but it is not in the finances right now. I bought the small portable Delta model last year and that has been a disappointment.

-- mike, wisconsin, www.whatwooddo.com

I am a carpenter by trade and woodworker by hobbie and I’d say that the power plane is more the stuff of carpentry. It’s handy to have for shaving off the crown of a high joist or a stud but i’d never let it touch a surface anyone would see. As far as those rough boards you’d be amazed at what a sharp plane can accoplish for you.

-- Just for the Halibut

I agree with ds, a regular electric powered hand plane wouldn’t be any good to produce a smooth large surface area. However, although I haven’t put my hands on one, Makita makes one with a curved sole plate that is supposed to mimic hand hewing. It’s a little pricey though, I think about $300 plus bucks.

-- Carl Rast, Pelion, SC