Hand held planner

[Evon]

I'm in the market for a hand held planner. What's a good size than can be easily controlled by hand? What is a good make and model? Thanks, Evon

[David]

I have a DeWalt. I never use it. What do you want a hand held planner for, may I ask? It qualifies as one of those tools that I thought I wanted/needed but find it isn't too useful except for knocking high spots off of a warped stud when building walls. I see no place for it in fine woodworking.

David

Ev> I'm in the market for a hand held planner. What's a good size than can be

[Evon]

[David]

To flatten a board without a surface planer, I suggest you invest in some planes. I'm not totally conversant with all the types of planes, but if you Google on the subject within rec.woodworking, you'll find tons of useful info here. The only plane I have at the moment is a Veritas Low Angle Smoother. Planes won't take up much space in your shop, but they can sure remove a lot of green from your wallet! :)

You might want to get ahold of a copy of the Lee Valley catalog, or go to their web site. (They sell great planes - Veritas)

A powered hand plane isn't going to give satisfactory results on a wide panel.

David

Ev> I like to make furniture out of old wood. Sometimes I need to flatten a

[Bob Jones]

I got my hand held planner down at the planning commission. One day I was in there and saw this cute little gal working on some plans for the city. Well, sir, to make a long story short, I started dating her and before you know it I was holding her in my hands. Oh, wait a minute, you guys meant hand held planer.

Never mind.

Doncha hate a smartass?

[David]

yes. notice I spelled it both ways in 2 posts... :)

David

Bob J>

[Preston Andreas]

I have the DeWalt and it is seldom used. It is 4 years old and still looks new. It won't take the place of a jointer or planer. It is more for taking off high spots or fitting a passage door to the opening. For a really bad board, you might take a swipe with the electric planer, but I would follow up with a hand plane. However, you can spend about as much getting a couple of decent planes as you would buying a benchtop planer. And that doesn't include the sharpening and honing equipment necessary to make the plane work correctly. In my area, you frequently see almost new jointers and planers in the classifieds. I'm sure from someone who just knew he was going to love woodworking.

Preston

[Mike Marlow]

There have been enough posts from people who own power planes that another one won't provide any new information, but I'll throw my on the heap, just to add to the numbers. I like mine - maybe even love it, but that's because it's a cool tool, not because I get much use out of it. I've taken down a couple of door edges with it and it's a great tool for that. It works fast, accurate and makes the right amount of noise and mess to make you know you've used a power tool. I've tried surface planning with it and it just fails miserably at that job. So - it sits in it's case under the work bench

99.99999999% of the time. BTW - mine is a DeWalt.

[BUB 209]

Hogging and tapering are a couple of good uses for the HHP, say you're making a ramp and want to feather the edge of a sheet of plywood. I never know when I'm going to need mine until I do, and that's pretty often. All depends on the kind of rec woodworking you're into.