DeWalt 733 planer blade change

[George Berlinger]

Been reading quite some time, thought I,d ask you guys a question about changing blades in a DeWalt planer #733 How easy is it using the magnetic jig that comes with it. Should I buy another type jig, if so, what one. Planer has worked well up to now, blades leaving a few grooves, diffently need re-sharpening. Any on-line places to send them to would help. Seen the new 3-blade Dewalts, nice, but can,t justify spending the money when this one works fairly well. Thanks in advantace, any input appeciated.

p.s. My shop dog "Snow" is almost 15 yrs. old now , American Eskimo, minature, 17#`s.....has trouble with arthritus now,shows more aggression than before, probably pain. Vet said he`s lifed a full life. Don,t wanna think about it, but may put him down as his quality of life is not the same. A sad Day.

[tom]

Sorry about your dog. Maybe try glucosamine/chondroitin? There's chewable stuff for dogs out there. I've got the 733, and changing the blades is a snap, even with the supplied jigs. Just whip out the manual that came with the planer, and follow the instructions. I noted that the newer planers come with disposable double-edged blades, and they're around 40-50 dollars a pop. Not for me. I don't know of any on-line places to get them sharpened, as I prefer my local sharpening service. JB's a great guy. Check your local sources, i.e. the yellow pages? Tom

[barry]

If by grooves, you mean something like raised stripes, the blades have been nicked. No problem, you just loosen the gib holding one of them and move the blade slightly (maybe < 1/8") to one side or the other. Stripe gone.

J

[Stephen M]

You cant to that on a 733. The bolts that hold the knife go *though* the knife.

[Stephen M]

Absolutely not. It really is a snap with the supplied magnetic jigs.

-Steve Happy owner of a 733 for about 4 years and a least a half a dozen blade changes.

[B a r r y]

It's a 10 minute job, needing nothing that isn't on that little tool tray on the planer.

Barry

[Dukes909]

I'm sorry to hear about your dog. Focus on letting him know you love him and not to be afraid. I lost 2 "Sr." dogs in the past 2 years. One, a 15 year old Golden in 2004, and another lab mix that was 12 in January 2005. He was the best friend my wife and I ever had. The past year was the worst for me after losing him. I vowed never to have another dog. Then out of the blue, a year to the day of losing him a puppy showed up in our lives. She's nothing like the other dogs we lost, and it's a good thing I guess. But she is a joy.

You can Scary sharpen the 733 blades yourself, at least one time. I've done it using the Veritas jointer knife jig and it works fine. In fact I bought new blades prior to getting the jig but the jig worked well enough that I haven't put the new ones on yet.

Best of luck, Dukester

[Leon]

Typically the jigs that come with the tools work better.

Can those actually be resharpened?

Those cannot be resharpened, but can be rehoned a bit IIRC.

I have a 13 year old, last December, Choc Lab. She has been slowing down and with the arrival of the colder weather I can see that she was having a hard time sittind down or laying down. I started her on the cheap magic pill. Daily she looks forward to eating 1 Baby Asprin. She acts an moves around much much better. It took about 2 weekds for the pills to loosen her up. The vet had a more expensive approach.

[David]

the (2ea., single sided) 733 blades can be resharpened.

Dave

[Mike Dembroge]

I have the same planer and have a set of after-market planer pals for setting the blades. The original or "stock" pals works better. The after-market pals seem to set the blades just a hair deeper into the head of the planer. This difference made it difficult to use because the blades were so high that there was just barely enough clearance when running stock through. The depth-of-cut gauge was way off as well. The blades did not contact the wood until the gauge read about 1/32 to 3/64 depth-of-cut. Of course, I could have done it wrong, but when I reset the blades using the stock pals, it worked much better.

BTW: Tormek has a jig for their machine for sharpening planer and jointer blades. That's what I use and it works great. It's much better than sending them out for sharpening or finding a sharpening source. Of course, the cost of a Tormek is non-trivial!

[WConner]

Sometime in the last three years, Wood Magazine has run two articles on sharpening your own blades. Both used a drill press, one Wood Mag. built and was a little complicated, wet system. A very simple, dry system, was sent in by a reader.

Walt Conner