Cheapo Power Tools

Pity that the UK chains are not as clever as the German Aldi chain who have also managed to survive in the UK.

You obviously didn't get it.

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I have one of those - bought it probably 12 years ago or more. It was one of those occasions where almost any tool would have done - and that was the cheapest reasonable looking one. Having bought it, it has had reasonably regular use over the years.

Good points: Enough power, runs reasonably smoothly, leaves a good finish. Height of the sole plate is easy to adjust.

Not so good: The dust extraction spout is an odd shape (trapezoidal!) that makes attaching a hose next to impossible unless you can track down the correct adaptor. Mains lead leaves straight out the back rather than to a side, which tends to mean you always get it caught up on the work when planing something long (like the side of a door), could do with being a tad longer. Setting a null depth of cut after changing the blades seems to be an exercise in trial and error (with emphasis on the error bit). You can't lock the trigger on which can become fatiguing after time. The case geometry means that it is not possible to do much in the way of a rebate with it before the case will hit the work.

Hi,

Given that the average DIYer is likely to be fitting kitchens and trimming doors, I'd tend to agree, so from that perspective swapping planers and jigsaws in the list would be in order.

cheers, Pete.

Hi,

I bought a Skil recently which looks pretty similar, Skil being part of the Bosch group. It gives a very good surface finish but isn't a high precision tool, if used a number of times on the same surface of wood then the overall depth of cut isn't that accurate.

It should be possible to check how good a planer will be, by using the edge of a decent steel rule to check that the front and rear parts of the base are parallel at different depths of cut. Also that the tip of the blades when at the lowest point are parallel to the base too, and how near they will cut to the plane that the rear part of the base is in.

The problem I had with a cheap one is that the blades were slightly above the rear part of the base, and the base had a sharp edge. So once the workpiece caught this edge it would be pushed down a bit, the blades would then leave a very slight 'step' in the wood, this in turn gets caught, and so on, leaving a 'ripple' on the planed wood >:(

If using it a lot then the means of changing the blade is worth a look, on the better ones they are clamped down by a bar held by socket screws with no adjustment required. On the cheaper ones they're often clamped by a bar which is retained in a slot by backing off small bolts tapped into the bar. These need fine adjustment, and the bolts are often made of soft steel and the blade spanner from thin metal...

Also the size of the planer is a factor, a huge planer that can remove

I had a B&D planer 10-12 years ago that I thought was pretty good, they still make a very similar one the KW715A, so this may be worth a look. Not the KW712KA though, a comparison of the service diagrams on the B&D website shows up the differences.

AFAICT the cheap ones are very much the luck of the draw, the mid range ones should give a good finish but are unlikely to be high accuracy, the top end ones will give a great finish and should be ideal for taking material off in several passes accurately.

So for trimming door bottoms almost anything will do, for planing sawn wood to a good finish or 'cleaning up' some wood a mid range or possibly a budget one should do, and for removing exactly n.n mm off the end of a worktop a high end one would be best, but you may get lucky with something cheaper.

If you can speak to a joiner they should be able to give some good advice, there are a few here that might be able to chip in :)

cheers, Pete.

snip

Also, as with many developing countries, there is little governmental control on the operating standards of the factories. None of the environmental and safety controls that exist here. The safety record in the manufacturing belt of Southern China is appalling.

David

Interesting points. And if you had to buy one at that price range again, would you buy the same?

Hmmm good question... I guess the answer would be a qualified "no" - but only for the reason that it would be interesting to see if something "different" was better, rather than due to being particularly dissatisfied with it. If it were the only one on the shelf, and I needed a plane, then I would be happy enough with it. In absolute terms I have not used enough different ones to know how well it compares really.

(that probably reads a little more negatively than I intended - it is one of those tools that does not evoke strong feelings one way or the other when I use it (other than I wish I could plane level!) - hence you don't finsh a job thinking "That is really good tool, glad I bought it, joy to use" etc. By the same token I don't think "This is a pile of monkey vomit, I must get a proper one ASAP".

Having had a cheapishjigsaw for a while, I used to think that inaccuracy from blade wandering etc. was inherent in jigsaws. Almost by chance, I tried out a mid-high end Bosch GST and found it excellent and capable of really good work.

With hand power planes I'm less convinced. Let's assume that you eliminate the really low end rubbish that is noticably out of true (I have seen some of these) and look at reasonable products like Skil which seem to be mechanically reasonable but not highly powered. When I've compared these with the higher end like Bosch professional and Makita, apart from the power and perhaps being wider, the difference has not been very noticable.

None were capable of particularly accurate work as far as I could find. For example, for timber preparation from sawn timber, if one is doing this regularly, then a planer, thicknesser or combination of the two would do a much better job. For certain tasks, I find I do need to use a plane, but get much better control and results from a selection of hand ones.

For jobs like kitchen fitting and door trimming, I think that a power planer can be useful, but generally these are jobs where ultimate accuracy is not needed or where items are being scribed in to uneven surfaces. However, for this kind of accuracy I didn't see a big difference between a reasonable Skil product and a higher end one - i.e. not a lot more to be achieved. I think that if one were doing site work and/or needing to remove larger amounts of material quickly, there could be a case for the larger and more powerful power planer.

Possibly it's just me, but they seem neither one thing nor the other. On the one hand I can use a planer/thicknesser for accurately machining timber in linear dimensions. For finer work, I want to use a handplane or to sand the piece. This doesn't leave many power planer applications.

Hi,

True, but for me if I need accuracy in cutting timber or sheet material I'll use a circular saw, maybe with a simple jig.

I expect cutting curved shapes from thick board, eg sink cutouts is where a high end jigsaw really comes into it's own, and the rest of the time it will be a lot nicer to use, even if accuracy is not paramount.

I'm sure that there are other good uses for a decent jigsaw that I havent thought of, maybe they would justify me getting one.

In what way are they not accurate? Mid range or even some budget ones will give a very good surface finish, which is all is needed for cleaning up sawn timber.

What they might not give is a very consistent depth of cut all the way along the timber, particularly at the start and at the end. It might only vary by half a mm, but this could be noticable in some uses. Also if the same surface needs to be planed a number of times to give the required depth it could end up varying by a couple of mm, which isn't too good.

Again, is this in terms of finish or depth of cut? A high end one should be very good at both, but I'd expect that some high end ones are better than others.

For me I would only consider a thicknesser if I was planing a lot of wood in one go or wide boards. I don't really need to 'dimension' uneven wood, more just get a good surface finish and sometimes take a given amount off some wood that is already a consistent size.

If I need a very good surface finish on some timber I just plane a little off each side, using a rubber mat to stop it slipping around. With a bit of care any planer 'snipe' at the end of the cut can be minimised too.

Also if I want to lose say 1mm at one end and 3mm at the other I'll plane the wood in 'steps', then plane the steps out for a smooth finish.

Given the above I find I don't need a sander or hand plane, but I think it just comes down to personal preference.

cheers, Pete.

I do that for very large pieces of sheet material, but otherwise use a table saw. I agree though, that a circular saw with guide is a good way to cut large work.

I'd probably use a router for worktops, but tend to use the jig saw for work on thinner material.

That depends on what you want to do with the resulting timber. If it's for an application where the thickness is not too important - e.g. basic framing work, out of sight - and the planer is wider than the timber, then it probably doesn't matter too much.

This is the kind of thing that I meant. If it's meant to be straight, then I like it to be straight - a couple of mm can be quite noticable.

For cases of fitting a piece to a wall that is out of true, I find that I can better control and finish with a hand plane.

I wouldn't consider that depth of cut is that important for a hand planer, although I suppose that some people might. I'm much more concerned with squareness, consistency and finish.

I have a planer/thicknesser because I do work with wider boards. I tend to use it for preparing dimensional timber as well, because I can buy the sawn stuff in appropriate grade and prepare it to whatever sizes I want.

Another solution to that is to cut a longer piece and cut the sniped bits away afterwards.

I think so. There are probably several permutations to doing the mix of jobs that one wants to do and this results in tools being bought for that. Then the gaps that arre enot covered become less. I suppose also that getting used to one way of doing things creates preferences of tool type as well.