I am looking for information for my husband, The Sawdust Man=99. He would like to know if anyone has any experience with and opinions about the DeWalt DW735 Heavy-Duty 13" Three Knife, Two Speed Thickness Planer.
Pro? Con? Durability? Ease of use (as long as you know what you're doing, which he does)?
Any replies would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!
**************** Be Well, Julz
Best buy if you can afford it. I have an older 2 knife version, it performs flawlessly, leaves beautiful surface behind. Of course I'm using it in a home shop environment, so it's not getting too much abuse.
I'd say my DeWalt is the only tool I wouldn't change if I could start again. Everything else in my shop could be replaced with a better quality tool.
Marton
I've had one for a year and a half - love it. The quality of the cut is far superior to that of my previous planer (Delta 12.5"). Unlike the Delta, the knives on the DW735 are wide enough that they can be honed a couple of times when they get dull; the Delta's knives are far too narrow to permit that. The fan-forced chip ejection does a great job of keeping the chips away from the cutterhead.
The only drawbacks I see are price (worth it, though, IMO) and weight. That sucker is HEAVY! Definitely not something you want to put on a low shelf. Build or buy a stand, preferably one with wheels, to put it on.
The negative comments are so FAR removed from my own experiences with the DW735 that I really have to wonder if the reviewers have an axe to grind with DeWalt, or if they perhaps reviewed some other machine.
I'm particularly puzzled by the one reviewer's claim that he had to push boards through the planer, even when removing only 1/64" from narrow boards. I've put several hundred board feet of lumber through mine, with never a hint of any trouble with the feed rollers, even when taking off 1/16" on 6" wide oak.
In regard to the comments about poor cut quality, I will say that I've noticed that the quality of the finish is not as good on softer woods such as sycamore as it is on harder woods such as oak or sugar maple - and I'll point out that the guys complaining about cut quality were using softer wood.
I've only had mine for a couple months, but it does work well. Even on the second best setting, the finish it leaves is beautiful. You really need the optional ($50) infeed/outfeed table kit for best ease of operation, but some people claim to get by without it. They pretty much eliminate snipe, which I often got before purchasing the tables. It is very loud and heavy, but no more than a dozen other power tools. Heavy is good because it has a much more substantial chassis than other portable planers, not that the DW735 is very portable at about 100 lbs. It couldn't be much easier to use--very intuitive. If it has a con it would be the knives, which cost $50 a set and aren't supposed to be sharpened, but I see that some people do. But the knives are double sided so you get to flip them once before you toss them. Common wisdom here is that cost for replacement knives isn't a great deal more than paying a service to sharpen the knives from a traditional stationary planer. I'm still on the first side of the factory set after doing about a hundred board feet of relatively hard woods like white oak, coffeetree, walnut and canarywood. If I can do another 300 bf before I replace the knives, it will be about 12¢/bf, which is acceptable to me. I think it is a good machine and I'd buy it again.
Bought one, love it. Have not run more than a couple bags of chips through yet. The finishing speed produces a really smooth surface. Chip extraction is pretty good with a dust collector, only a few each pass make it out front to be blown off or swept away.
2 more inches would be nice, but then that would be 2" to skinny!I planned down some 14" Alder to 1/4" the other night a bit at a time, no problems with feeding.
Alan
That's 13-3/4" worth of chips! Wouldn't it have made more sense to resaw it?
I've had mine for about a year, and have used it on hard maple, rosewood, purple heart, koa, alder, and swamp ash. I always use the slower feed speed, which gives me 192 cuts per inch, IIRC. The boards come out with a finish like glass.
Excellent planer, very easy to use, and I'm still on the first side of my first set of knives.
BTW, I use a shop vac connected to the dust port to extract the chips--works just fine.
At 95 lbs, "Portable" is definitely a stretch on this tool, however. I mounted it on a stand.
--Steve
IH8FMS wrote:
I also wanted to mention that I've run a fair amount of birdseye and curly maple thru that think without any tear-out too.
--Steve
they say the limit is 12" for LENGTH to be safe, the alder had been resawed from scraps tossed at a local lumber supplier. With warp etc, I cut em short, resawed them, and they made lovely panels inside stile and rails for a hand tool toolbox I am bringing my tools to the Training the Hand workshop in Canada with Rob Cosman.
Alan
Just wanted to say thanks for re-affirming my purchase of the DW735.
I purchased one about a month ago from a local HD. Since it was the first time I opened an account with them I got 10% off plus 12 months of no interest.
I have not used it yet as I am still working on getting my small workshop setup. With the limited space I have, what is a good rolling cart/bench? Or would it be better to build something myself?
With that, if anyone reads this, what is a good dust collection for a small one car garage setup? Size of garage is about 9' x 12'+ feet.
Thanks,
Bill
Bill Davis Jr ( snipped-for-privacy@home.com) wrote on Wednesday 22 June 2005 07:17 pm:
Bill,
I bought the same one late last year. I'm pretty happy with it, although the blades that came with it were defective (started leaving grooves after putting two soft pine boards through it). You may want to run a few test boards through it to make sure you didn't get blades from the bad batch. If you did, call Dewalt - they sent me two sets of (good) blades.
The Dewalt portable stand is pretty good. It does the job well, but the bottom part of it is an open frame with flat shelf, i.e. a shelf that things roll off of when you move the portable stand. I'm going to end up putting doors and sides on the thing. This is especially important if you're short on space.
I'd recommend the folding tables, unless you're only doing real short pieces.
As for dust collection, I'd recommend the Dewalt chip collector and a large trash can. It's relatively painless to connect and disconnect to your trash can (unlike a crap Craftsman jointer I have), so it can easily double as your normal trash can.
I made a table from 2x2 poplar, 3/8" plywood and cheap latex paint. $15 for materials, but no wheels. I made a variety of them for storage bins, scroll saw stand, router table etc. They look pretty cool and with mortise and tenon joints they are nice and solid.
I will check this out, thanks.
Already purchased these. HD did not have them. Lowes did.
This is my initial plan for dust/chip collection.
Thanks again,
Bill
I would like to get some kind of table or bench with wheels as to the limited amount of space I have.
First I will look at what is available locally. Then if I can not find anything I will build my own.
Thanks again,
Bill
I use a Griz G8027 1HP DC in my one-car space. It works but I do wish I had invested in the next size up - something like their G1029Z or a Jet 1100.
Bill Davis Jr wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I built a flip top for mine:
http://66.1.238.45:8118/My_Homepage_Export/My_Homepage_Files/Page6.htmlI'll echo everything Doug Miller says - I've had mine for over a year now and have zero complaints! Also, I haven't seen any reason to buy the folding extenstion tables.
What mechanism are you using for focal points to flip the entire table one. Steel rod? Nuts and Bolts? Any wear at those points? Planer and Mitre saw together will add up to quite a bit of weight. I'd expect the planer to outweigh the mitre saw. Any great difficulty (muscle power needed) spinning the planer back up when it's upside down?
"Upscale" wrote in news:CY-dnU snipped-for-privacy@rogers.com:
Iron pipe. Standard, threaded, iron pipe from the plumbing department at Lowes.
Only been about a year - but nope, none that I can see.
Yeah. My CMS is pretty light, but the DW735 is almost a hunnert' pounds. Hence I double walled (from 3/4" ply) some things.
No. You do *notice* the weight differential, but you can do it one- handed, if your so inclined. I spent a little time positioning both on the top to try to get their mass centers as close to the rod as possible. But it was just by eyeball and horribly unscientific. Prolly' missed by a mile.
What I really screwed up on was the cheap casters. Life's too short for cheap clamps, cheap casters and cheap "xxxx"... :)
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