DEWALT Benchtop Planer, 15-Amp, DW734

Estaba indeciso entre este producto y la version DW735; me decidí por este ya que en todas las evaluaciones de consumidores que leí decían que ésta da el mismo resultado por menor precio, ademas de que tiene las bandejas de entrada y salida incluidas. Los resultados son excelentes, deja la madera para darle una última pasada suave con lija no. 320 y darle el acabado. Trabajo con maderas como la Parota que se despostilla muy fácilmente y me la deja sin despostillados y muy limpia, y el Tzalam que es dura, con veta encontrada, la cual queda con acabado impecable. La máquina es una gran ahorradora de trabajo.

I have been using this planer for about 3 months, and am still happy with it. A couple things could be better, but for the most part it has been one of those tools that you can rely on to do what it is supposed to.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* My planer is permanently mounted to a work table with four mounting bolts. These are not included-but they would never guess the right length anyway, so not a big deal. The planer is heavy, the instructions say 80 LBS, but it seemed lighter than that, so you may need a second person to help lift it into place.

* Within an hour of opening the box (and most of that time was spent reading the manual thoroughly), I was planing cedar. The tables seemed perfectly adjusted out of the box, and I got very smooth finishes with no snipe at all. Operation is relatively simple and mostly intuitive.

* Most of my planing is oak-typically resurfacing oak that I have reclaimed from old furniture or cabinets (much cheaper to buy oak at a thrift store than a lumberyard). It does an excellent job on oak, although you will occasionally get some slight snipe at the ends of previously finished lumber.

* I do not have a dust collection system, but my large shop vac attached to the rear port does a very nice job on dust and shavings. I do get a little dust, but very minimal amounts, and most of that is probably blow-by from the hose connectors. If I wasn’t so lazy, a more permanent “clamped” connection would work better. I do use a respirator when planing old pre-finished wood- there is no telling what is in the finishes.

* After planing about 1200 lf of oak, mostly 5-7″ wide, the blades started showing signs of dullness. Cuts were still clean, just not as smooth as they used to be. Swapping the knives turned out to be about a 20 minute project the first time, although I am sure it will be about half that next time. (Careful, real easy to cut yourself).

I also added a “lap counter” to the side of the table- the kind track coaches use to count laps. They are about $5, and I use them to track how much wood goes across the planer. One click = 10′. Not 100% accurate, but good for monitoring blade use.

* The small gauge to estimate the amount of material to be removed works great! I have found with planing oak that two or three very small passes (1/32 or so) works about the best, although you can sneak by with a 1/16 then a 1/32 without much difference.

* I seldom plane anything longer than 8′, and so far have not felt the need to purchase or build any extension feed tables.

=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* The height gauge is a bit inexact for my needs. I added a Wixey 850 to the planer, and love it. This should have been a part of the planer to start with.

* There is a “hard stop” for common thicknesses. I use the 3/4″ one quite a bit, but I find it to be a little unrepeatable (+/- 0.08 or so.. Not a major deal, but occasionally enough to be annoying.. The problem is that while the stop is fixed, you have to rely on “feel” to determine how tight to crank down on the head adjustment against the stop. The Wixey has been repeatable to 0.02 or so.

* I wish the in and outfeed trays would fold up. They stick out over the front and rear of my work bench, and I hate having tools get bumped.

* The on/off switch is easy to use, provided you are standing in the front of the unit. However at about the half-way point in any planing, you are now standing at the back of the unit, and there is no way to get to the switch quickly in an emergency. As with all my tools, I added “panic buttons to the tables, and in this case, added on front and rear.

=== Summary ===

While there are some parts of this tool that I wasn’t totally thrilled with, they were relatively easy to correct, and the planer is now a trusted and often-used part of my shop. So far it has been used for roughly 75% red oak, 15% cedar and 10% poplar, and has performed well on all of these. I have trued-up some cupped wood without much trouble, although the cups were relatively slight-maybe 1/8 or so.

Great planer. Heavy, solid. Does a pretty good job leaves a smooth finish but will snipe the ends of the board of you don’t end for end your boards, more noticeable on hardwood. Overall happy with my purchase.