DeWAlt 735 Planer Question & Hint

[James]

Hi Group, I just flipped the blades in my 735 planner. These cannot be sharpened can they? Here's the hint I was looking for a way to route the chips to a garbage can (I'd been using a shopvac) and didn't want to get involved with 4" dust fittings (pricey) so I started looking at

2" ABS fittings. I used a 2" long 90* elbow which almost slipped over the 2 1/2" outlet. I warmed it up with a heat gun until it was soft and forced it over the outlet. It's tight but won't blow or vibrate off but can be removed. Then I added a short length of 2" ABS pipe, a 90* street elbow, a male adapter thru the trash can lid and a female adapter to act as a nut to hold it in place. Cost about $10. Jim

[Jeff]

[Doug Miller]

Yes, they can, although "honed" might be a better word. There's not enough metal there to allow for heavy grinding, but they can be lightly ground. I use a Tormek grinder, with their planer-knife jig. The Tormek doesn't remove metal very fast, so it's easy to get a good edge without accidentally going too far. I've had my DW735 for over four years, and use it a *lot* -- but I'm still on the first set of knives (and the fourth resharpening). It appears that the fifth resharp will probably be the last one, and then I'll have to get new blades.

[Twayne]

Do you really need vacuum? Mine's powerful enough the chips go thru my large vac hose right into the garbage can. The can's fastened to the planer carrier; moves around with it. it's also a DeWalt.

[Rick Samuel]

I just got through putting my stand together for my 735, upgrade from Ryobi A10. (still going strong, but snipe was becomming a problem)

Have a picture ro two of your garbage can set-up?

[James]

Soon, Jim

[James]

I run some really old hard oak thru mine and wore a dip in them so I suspect that there isn't enough edge left. Jim

[Doug Miller]

Depends on how much of a dip. According to DeWalt technical support, the discard dimension is 7/8" (0.875") width. In my experience, you can get away with going even smaller, but not by much (maybe another 0.010).

Also, to avoid that problem in the future, vary the position of the boards when you feed them through so you're not wearing the same section of the blade every time -- or skew them diagonally so that the entire blade is used on every pass.

[toolman946 via CraftKB.com]

When the blades are "done" for the planer... make up a handle and they can be ground into really good marking knives! (Shorten the blades first, though...)

[Doug Miller]

That's a great idea. I think I'll steal that.

[James]

The blower is very powerful so that's why I eliminated the shopvac plus I had enough noise without running the shopvac. Jim

[Doug Miller]

You mean you can hear your shopvac over the DW735?

[James]

Only if I leave my hearing aids in. :>) Pictures will be coming soon. I've still got a couple of bugs to work out. Jim

[BDBConstruction]

I am sure you have probably all seen this but just in case:

have a 735 that we take on jobs with us and I picked one of the above up for 20.00 at a local tool surplus it works really well. The worst part is if you have any quantity of material you had better have

4-6 trash cans or a place to dump them. I have always been very impressed with the chip removal of the 735. We actually surfaced about 1200bf of chestnut oak on a job once and if you got behind the planer the chips would actually hurt.

Mark