DW733 Portable Thicknesser - mini review

[John Rumm]

In case anyone is in the market for a portable planer/thicknesser, I thought the following notes may be useful. When reading these, bear in mind that I have only used the portable class of machines in the past and so can't give any real feel for how these units in compare with the solid cast iron workshop class machines.

I had been looking about for a thicknesser for some time and had considered a number of possible candidates. My planned usage was for ongoing hobby use, plus the occasional bit of more intensive DIY/building work. Something that could achieve a good finish quality was high on the list of requirements.

The bargain basement stuff I looked at did not impress too much - there seem to be a handful of models that get badged by all sorts, which seemed a bit rough in construction. All had short tables (and hence were probably rather snipey). Also at the low end was the slightly more reasonable looking Perform model at Axminster, although the small dust port and lower power put me off a bit. The Axminster CT330 looked like a nice unit but was perhaps a tad more than I wanted to pay. In the end I decided on one of the SIP models as a reasonable compromise at around the £250 mark. Just before ordering however, I stumbled over a dealer on eBay offering the aforementioned higher spec DeWalt machine as a "factory rework" unit for similar money. So clicked the "buy it now" button![1]

Having now used it a bit for a few different tasks my initial impressions are:

Very solid construction - nicely made, heavier than many at about 34kg. The fold down tables are very solid and quite long (over 0.5m in total). The tables have a highly polished mirror smooth finish. This is the first DeWalt tool I have owned, and it is very clearly not just a yellow B&D, but firmly in the Makita / Blue Bosch class.

Good bits:

There is much that I have found to like about this unit:

The most notable thing is the shear quality of the finish that is achievable. The belt driven cutter assembly on this model spins at 10K rpm giving 20k cuts per min. When taking a fine pass, the finish is suburb - almost polished. Yielding results superior to much shop bought PAR timber with none of the tell tail machine planed ripple in the surface.

There is a clear and easy to read depth gauge with indicator needle. The crank leaver (which can fold down for transportation) is also calibrated in mm of material removal. In addition there is a material removal gauge that shows how much will be planed from the timber sitting just before the first feed roller - so it is easy to (say) take 1mm off without needing to have done a previous pass to know that the cutter is aligned with the top surface of the timber. Finally on the measurement front there is a pre-set depth stop that allows common timber thickness to be dialled up. This prevents the cutter head being lowered below the pre-set thickness.

The unit has a four column support for the planer head, that also has a lock bar. When this is engaged there is practically no visible snipe at all! Armed with a set of roller stands I have found it easy to plane even long stock and still be able to use all of it including the ends. (even without engaging the lock there is very little snipe so it is easy to plane mostly to thickness and just apply the lock on the final pass or two).

Power seems good, but then again I have not tried planing any 12" wide oak board yet!

The machine has a tool storage tray built in that retain all the adjustment tools and blade setting blocks etc on the machine so it ought to be harder to lose them!

Not so good bits:

Like most machines of this type, dust collection is via a shroud that fits on to the back of the planer block. This is nicely made with an angled side exit port. The port is also rounded over at the end which makes sliding the hose onto it easy (unlike some of the wobbly steel tubes provided on some models). However with it in place you are unable to fold up the rear table. Given the long length of the table this also makes storage of the machine harder. To make matters worse the shroud takes a few mins to attach or remove - being fastened with three pan head screws and shake washers. A bit of work with some thumb nuts on protruding studs would have made this much quicker and less fiddly. Some sort of quick release clip would have been better still.

The carry handles on the machine slide in and out from the body of the machine rather than simply being recesses. This does actually make it easier to pull the machine toward you with one handle (say unloading from the back of an estate car), but alas they are also free to slide shut onto your hands if you carry the machine at an angle, making them less comfortable in some cases.

Care is needed with the lock bar when planing thick timber. Firstly the positioning of it means that it is slightly fiddly to get hold of as it becomes mostly covered by the top of the machine. Also when released it springs back with reasonable force which can bang the back of your hand into the top of the machine if you are not careful.

Finally there are no top mounted rollers to make passing stock back over the machine easy when planing with the help of an assistant.

The technical spec can be found here:

[1] Great service from the dealer BTW - fixit powertools in colwyn bay (eBay handle "tools-uk") - contacted me to apologise that they had in fact only one of these units to sell and not the three they thought they had - hence they could not supply straight away. They tried to get another factory rework from DeWalt, but could not get one soon enough. So I asked them to quote for a brand new unit, which they did, and beat the best online price I could find. So in the end I spent another 55 quid for a brand new unit.

[Andy Hall]

I've used one of these a few times in the past and a couple of friends in the U.S. have this model. None would say that this type of machine generically is going to produce the same quality of result as a larger fixed machine with long tables, but they are all able to turn out very good work with it.

I was just looking through a review by Fine Woodworking of a couple of years ago on a range of portable thickness planers and their conclusions were about the same as yours - i.e. there are a number of generic entry level machines around (Grizzly, Geetech, Central, ..) that are similar to the Axminster offerings (sub $300). Results were inconsistent - i.e. good in some areas, lousy in others and not consistent between what were basically similar machines.

DW was in the mid range and came out the best of this bunch. The reviewer noted the very low snipe which seemed to be partly as a result of having a cutterhead lock. The other machines didn't have that.

There was a higher cost category including Makita and (curiously) Ridgid. The main benefits of these were not in terms of quality of result - the DW did better both in terms of snipe and parallelism - but convenience. The Makita has some quick release and fit blade arrangements and a good depth gauge. However it is nearly $500 vs the $350 (at the time) of the DW.

I've sent you a copy of the review.

I found an article with a project to make a portable set of infeed/outfeed tables that you might find useful. One of my US friends made one of these and it helps a lot with longer or wider pieces - especially hardwoods. I'll send you that as well.

The point is to have freahly sharp knives and not to attempt to plane too much at a time.

The FWW review indicated that the DW knives could be sharpened up to 5 times if you wanted.

If you are going to work with hardwoods, proper dust extraction is really important as dust tends to be finer and more irritant than with softwoods. Generally I notice in my dust collector that there is a greater proportion of finer dust to chips from hardwoods than from softwoods.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Don't think there's any question about DeWalt in this specialised part of the market. Maybe on the high volume stuff, though.

[dom]

For anyone looking for a full-on planer-thicknesser I bought the scheppach hms260 about a year ago (after umming and ahhing about a dewalt and electra-beckum instead) - and found it ideal (I would change nothing about it) right up to it's maximum dimensions (though 300mm width would be useful now and again, the price stepis significant).

How do people cope with thicknesser only? Surely the moment you encounter some bowed boards you're stuck with an irregularity only a surface planer can remove?

[John Rumm]

Thanks for that. I did look into the Makita and managed to track down some reviews of it. The main benefit of that one seemed to be quicker service times and better portability. Neither of which were quite as high up my requirements list as finish quality and lack of snipe "out of the box". IIRC there are a few places selling it for similar money to the DW as well.

Thanks again. In fact I think I saw a similar idea shown in either FWW or woodsmith this month (can't remember which). The downside with that for me is lack of shop space. Long stock preparation is more a summer job since I need to take over a lump of back garden, or alternatively setup the thicknesser toward the door of my workshop so that I can plane with the outfeed into the garden onto a roller stand (while keeping me and the dust collector inside in the warm!). Having said that, the lack of snipe on this one does actually mean it is easy enough to plane stock after it has been cut to length rather than have to allow for chopping the ends off - so the 1.5m (ish) length I can handle inside the workshop is adequate in most cases.

Not having a ready supply of oak in these parts also cuts down the need to do it that often!

I have not taken them out to look closely - but there does seem to be a reasonable amount of meat on them...

Note that unlike the model reviewed then machine in the UK does *not* come with a spare set of knives.

Indeed I would not dream of doing it without...

(I was helping a mate prepare some oak edging for his kitchen worktops a couple of weeks back using his Axminster thicknesser without any collection! I was trying to convince him that it would actually save him time and money to get a chip collector since if nothing else you save hours sweeping up and wading through a sea of planer shavings. It obviously sank in, since he looked at me using the DW with collection the other day and decided that perhaps it was a good idea after all)

[John Rumm]

Yup - I thought it worth mentioning since as with most brands there is a fair bit of quality variation across the model range, and with OEMs that have several big brands in one stable, there must be some temptation to push the better spec low end models "up" into the higher (and higher profit margin) "brand".

I was wandering through a shop the other day, when they had some DW kit on display. So I stopped to look at a handheld powered planer, and also a 7" circular saw. While it is not possible to judge that much without actually trying it - the circular saw only seemed "adequate" - not really any better than my B&D proline, or a similar skil saw on display. Pressed steel sole plate, decent guard and top cover - but nothing that oozed quality at you in the way that some of the Hitachi ones do (having said that the motor and bearings may have been first rate - but I could not tell without power!). The handheld planer however did look and feel very good - very highly machined sole plate, good rebate depth, precise adjustments.

[John Rumm]

Nice looking bit of kit... I think a bigger workshop would need to be on the menu first in my case though! ;-)

You are right that there are some things a planer will do that a thicknesser won't, but I find that thicknessers are still very useful in their own right for all sorts of job.

You can extend their application with a bit of imagination as well - so things like making a fence that you can clamp boards to prior to passing the whole thing through the thicknesser will allow square edge preparation. Cup and curl are not too diffficult to deal with, but a seriously bowed/bent board is a more trickey proposition. The answer to which might be use it for something else, and find more suitable board!

[Andy Hall]

Sure. I didn't look at the Makita in any more detail, but it appeared that most of the things were convenience of use features rather than ultimate quality. For example, the reviewer said that the two feed rates didn't seem to show much difference in terms of results. That might be a different story with certain types of wood.

Even if not, usually the snipe is fairly predictable so you can always cut slightly over length and then to length.

ISTR that they weren't that expensive anyway.

That's a bad idea. Apart from the mess, I find that oak dust is relatively irritating.

I'm surprised that it would work at all without some clearance of shavings.

[Andy Hall]

Not necessarily.

You can get quite a long way with a 150 or 200mm planer - you don't necessarily have to have a 300mm one.

For example, a typical 150mm planing machine is only about 550mm or so deep and can go right against a wall.

I have a 300mm planer/thcknesser on the combination machine, but to be honest, it's relatively infrequent that I am planing wider boards than

150mm. In the thicknesser, the usual thing is to run more than one board through to save time.

I've done this in the past. You can get fairly reasonable results, although if it's with a wide board held vertically you have to be rather careful because it will tend to tip sideways. The problem comes in pushing the fence down and keeping it pushed down if the piece is long and the temptation for hands to get too close to the business area.

If you are careful, take time and don't try to push your luck, it can be done. However, once you've used a planer, you wouldn't want to do it again :-)

Nevertheless, for a lot of DIY purposes, having just a thicknesser and being able to buy sawn or CLS timber and prepare to wanted size is a time, material and cost saver.

[John Rumm]

Quite agree! I kept my respirator on... At least there was not too much to do.

On the thicknesser he has (not one of the current Axminster ones) if you remove the collection cowel then it leaves part of the top of the cutter block exposed and it throws chips out the back of the machine (I expect there was a cover plate of some description that would have to have been removed to attach the cowl in the first place). Does not help the mess creation any, but does at least stop it clogging up too much. It also helped that we were only working stock that was a couple of inches wide. Had we have needed to do any quantity I would have gone and got my collector.

[John Rumm]

You haven't seen how full it is! (there is a danger of it becoming a outside cupboard rather than a place to work!)

I expect that one of the table top planers would meet my current needs, limited as they are.

If you make an inverted Tee type of fence then you can clamp the board to the upright bit and it ought to resist falling over too much. Make it quite tall and solid (so you need the cutter head quite high to clear it and you can clamp smaller width stock a little up the face if required to have it meet the cutter. Obviously you can get more rigidity if you need to do a bunch of boards since you can do several together which adds some rigidity.

I am sure you are right... the trick probably being to not use one until you have the space for it - then you won't know what you are missing! ;-)

Yup, I saved the cost of my dust collector on wood for 2nd fix on loft conversion by doing that. Very handy when you need odd sizes like 25mm thick finished PAR for fire door stops. I bought a 8x3" KD joist, planed top and bottom, and then ripped strips off of it on the table saw and finished them.

[Andy Hall]

If you mean something like the little Axminster Perform, then I would really suggest passing. It might be all right for model boat building, but that's about it. Planers really do need to have cast tables to avoid any possibility of flexing. The Axminster White one is slightly better in that the beds are more solid, but they are woefully small and that's really the problem. 720mm overall length and about 350 either side of the cutter. I suppose that one could use some infeed and outfeed tables, but I am not sure very successfully.

That's probably about the limit for a table top machine anyway - 20kg+ for this one.

It's a pity that there isn't an interim size. The next up is the floor standing small 150mm modela and then you are into 80kg.

Realistically, even if there were a similar sized benchtop model, it would weigh 50-60kg.

That's a way to look at it.

In fact, you can do a reasonable squaring job on a table saw if you're not looking for ultimate accuracy and then clean up on the thicknesser.

[Andy Dingley]

Only Scheppach stuff I've used in the last 10 years struck me as awfully tinny. Bit too likely to bend it like an Elektra-Beckum.

I don't have a combi machine, I use a separate thicknesser and jointer for just this reason (Axmonster CT330 and CT150). Almost all my thicknessing is 13" boards, which the Axminster handles and a DeWalt 733 won't. They're coming off a bandsaw with an operator who believes in "baker's dozens" on width. A 10" wide combi would be a _very_ big limitation on what I do and what I do it out of.

Very well indeed.

irregularity only a

Nope - you knock the high spots off with a scrub or a () electric planer, then you stuff them through the thicknesser. Do the convex side first until it's a wide enough flat to be stable, then work each side in turn. Takes a bit of a knack to do it well or quickly, but it certainly works and it saves buying a 12" wide planer that would probably require

3 phase.

The one thing you can't cope with is a twisted board - but then decent timber doesn't twist and so you're probably trying to save soemthing that's better housed on the firewood pile.

[Andy Hall]

irregularity only a

I've done this - works quite well - although doesn't prevent making a parallelogram (i.e. sides out of square). Presumably you then joint the board edges?

You can get planers of this width that run from single phase. My combination machine does as well as one with a wider planer (400mm) with up to 3.6kW motors. Having said that, it does need a 30A supply.

Another thing that I thought of that is worth mentioning is that it is a good idea to run a metal detector over timber before running it through the planer. I have an airport security type for doing this (Lumber Wizard - Rutlands 25505, although mine came from the US at half their price).

In the U.S. it is quite common to find bullets and other firearm projectiles in timber, especially second hand. I've had instances of nails and tacks in timber from a timber yard - no idea how it got there.

Either way, it will nick planer blades badly, probably to the point beyond being able to resharpen them. When you have a cutter block with 4 blades, that can spoil your day.... Hasn't happened yet, fortunately.

[Andy Dingley]

I'm probably going to rip the board edges before I even think about jointing them. A parallelogram is the least of my worries.

Metal detectors are a good thing, but I've been very unimpressed with the Wizards I've tried - they couldn't detect Fred Dibnah's shed!

Mine is, literally, a landmine detector. Cheap, works.

[Andy Hall]

Of course. I usually tend to joint the first edge, then for the second rip slightly over width and joint to size to clean up.

I imagine that they would be sensitive enough.....