RE: Updating the previous threads referencing rapid wear-out of Dewalt planer knives. Apologies if this has already been covered.
I was talking with a factory rep at a WW show and he told me that Dewalt had so many problems with their planer knives in the past because they got "many thousand" knives manufactured through a sub-contractor who produced them with poor metal/hardening, etc. He said the blades were installed in a lot of machines prior to January 2005, but that since that date all machines have new/diff manufacture knives installed which eliminated the short-life problem. He also said that (and he told me he wasn't supposed to say this to a customer) if you are careful, and use honing rather than grinding, you can get 2 to 3 sharpenings on the "throwaway" knives providing there are no deep nicks. You need to look at the manufacture date code on the machine label to see if your machine is affected. Maybe the factory gives free blades if you bring it up? Don't know if any of this is good info, but it came right from a factory rep, so... Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.
That said, now I need to decide whether to get the Dewalt at $499, or just go for the Grizzly/York 15" at around $275 more.