Electric Planer

[george [dicegeorge]]

Electric Planer - I've never used one, is this one for £35 OK or are there advantages to getting more expensive ones?

I'm not going to use it every day, just on this one house.

[george]

[Bill]

In message , "george [dicegeorge]" writes

It must be good.

Seems to have shaved off whatever link you meant to show.

[John Rumm]

Yup, looks lovely... and so neat and small ;-)

[george [dicegeorge]]

[Andy Dingley]

There's no advantage to having either one. Whatever you want it for, either a good hand plane, or a good random orbit sander, is more use.

[NT]

"george [dicegeorge]"

Cheap tools dont last so well. Cheap planers plane ok IMLE

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. The blaide is probably made of butter, but for occasional use so what?

Last time i used mine was to make the christams tree fit the stand..last year.

Well mine is lethal if you put it down before its stopped spinning - a brake might have been nicer.

[NT]

Check your cheapie has TC tipped blades. Most did when I looked a while ago.

NT

[robgraham]

Sorry, Andy, I really don't agree with you. A power planer with TC blades is a god send in applications like trimming a door, stripping clag off 2nd hand timber and generally dealing with problems where significant trimming down is required and often enough you cannot apply the effort that a hand plane requires.

I don't know this specific tool, but I'm on my second hand power planer in 20+ years. The current cheapy, now about 5 years old, could do with replacing as the cutting depth adjustment is too course, and that is something I would look at on this one if I was buying.

I don't use the power planer all that often, but it does make life a lot easier for some tasks.

Rob

[stuart noble]

I use a circ saw for that. One cut, dead accurate. For most other tasks I like to rough cut with a jigsaw and finish off with the planer. I suppose what I'm saying is that i don't rate planers for stock removal.

[charles]

but say 1/4 inch. That would mean using the circular saw for 3/16 and then finish off the the plane. That's a very thin bit to cut with a circular saw.

[NT]

I find mine useful for small amounts of trimming. Also if you dont have a router with you, a planer can take the sharpness off edges.

NT

[Roger Mills]

Except where you only need to remove a few mm. A circular saw is not a lot of use and, if end grain is concerned, it's b***dy hard work with a hand plane. That's when a power plane comes into its own.

[Cash]

Roger,

Sorry to disagree with you.

But IME, end grain is b***dy easier to plane using a hand plane with a very sharp blade, with the cap iron set close to the end of the blade, the minimum blade exposure on the sole and the plane mouth set to the minimum required to clear the waste (and a very slight smear of light oil or candle grease on the sole) -- than with the great lump of a hand power plane travelling at high revs, usually not set at a fine enough cut and with no means of using the fingers to control it (without also lopping bits off them) to prevent end splitting (well not on most of the stuff I use).

To prevent the timber splitting, you can either plane in from either end across the grain, or simply 'knock' the edge off the far end from the direction of travel and plane from one end - or do as I do, forget the plane and stick some 80 to 120 grit paper in a half-sheet orbital sander and run that across it.

If you are talking about planing the bottom off something like a door, where you can come in from either end, then the power plane could come into its own - but on small stuff, I wouldn't even try it.

As a matter of interest, when buying a 'cheap' hand power plane, always check that the blades are parallel across the sole and both are set at the same depth in cutter block.

I didn't check this after buying a "cheap" Aldi power plane for a one-off b*****d of a job, and found on the very first 'pass' over the timber, the blades were "out of parallel" with the sole causing an out-of-square cut.

Took half and hour to sort that out, did the job and then threw the lump in the bin ready for the scrappie.

All great fun at the time, but I eventually managed to successfully take the paint off about 150ft of recycled timber (sapele) - and leaving it nice and square and ready for me to find a use for it.

Cash

[John Rumm]

They can be handy for things that are difficult to plane by other means... say trimming a couple of mm off a melamine face chipboard kitchen cabinet plinth.

[The Medway Handyman]

Trimming the height of a door I use a circ saw & sawboard. Trimming the width I use a planer.

[The Medway Handyman]

I've had a Black & Decker for a few years & I can't fault it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

CHEAP machine planes are not precision tools like a hand plane or a planer thicknesser or even a router.

They are a first class way to rough out wood to the nearest mm and THEN get mucking around with the hand plane or block sander.

I used mine to turn some oak T @ G into a seat for a swing. I needed to remove the T and the G bits from the outer edge, and generally round off sharp edges..

Then a half hour with some coarse grit got the thing suitable for the bum ..

[Alan]

OK is if it takes "standard" size blades from another reputable manufacturer. Decent blades can make a massive difference to the end result.

[stuart noble]

With a longer sawboard you could do the length as well. I wouldn't trust myself to do a decent tapered trim with a plane