|
Save yourself a bunch of money and buy the DW734. This planer has plenty of power and leaves a nice finish, but it snipes very, very badly, way beyond acceptable limits, and that was with a narrow, short piece of wood. It is what I was looking for. This thing snipes worse than a Ryobi without a cutter head lock.
I bought this planer yesterday after work at the "Blue" home center. This planer, DW735, doesn't perform to the price tag. With the cutter head locked, there is only 1 to 2 thousandths snipe, easy to sand off. I was going to buy the DW734 12.5" planer, but decided this one looked better.
I returned it first thing this morning and bought the DW734. Buy the DW734. Boy was I wrong. They claim there is a built-in cutter head lock, but it must be a ghost.
Great machine. Chip ejection is impressive - not having a dust-collection system, it blew chips 6' straight out into an outdoor pile. Snipe was limited, even with just "eyeballed" manual support of 10' lengths. I bought this planer with the intention of turning rough chainsaw-milled slabs into usable stock after recent storms took down a number of large black cherry trees on my property. I'm actually looking forward to the next time storms take down some more trees. Doesn't bog down at all, even removing 1/16" per pass from 12" cherry stock. 300+ board feet later, the knives remain sharp and free of nicks and the surface it produces is glassy smooth. The feed mechanism works well, even on the very irregular surface produced by chainsaw milling.
So I decided to get a Dewalt, thinking that the dual speed would be helpful. About every 200 board feet, the machine would have trouble feeding stock--even with a dust collector connected. My seven-year-old Makita burned out about half way through the project. The only real problem I ran into was with the feed stalling. I purchased a Dewalt 735 last weekend.
I'll keep it. But overall, the machine is good. I took off between 1/16" and 3/32" on 6- to 12-inch-wide stock. Scraping the rollers (and lubricating the bed) fixes the problem, but it recurs too frequently. The blades lasted for about 1800 board feet (one side) before starting to show wear. The feed rollers on the Dewalt seem to be constructed of a pretty soft material, and they pick up debris while planing. The "rough" speed gave me a good enough finish, at about the same timing as the Makita. The feed rollers on the Makita would stall once in a while, but the problem is much worse on the Dewalt.
I'm in the middle of a home building project, where I needed to plane 2500 board feet of cherry. I cleaned chips off the rollers and lubricate the bed, and it would last for about another 200 board feet. Hopefully, it lasts as long as the Makita did. It turns out that I didn't even use the dual speed feature. Although others have complained about the blades, I believe they are at least as good as those sold by Makita.
I'm very satisfied and glad I bought it. I don't think there's any planer that doesn't require you to sand to a smooth finish. (The table and stand made expressly for this planer is a must have too). I've had good success with this planer. Yes, it does tend to leave about a 1/16 inch(or less) ridge along a board, but that's no big deal to me as it can and will be sanded away when you finish the board/wood.
My first effort had snipe at both ends. Before I purchased this machine I read the reviews on it here, and several other sites including Dewalt. Frankly, I am not used to seeing as many negative reviews, and about things I was concerned with I.E.Snipe, ease of use, and ease of adjustments to be specific.However, in the end I bought the DW735. I think they will help keep the stock level with the cutters.I think Dewalt should include them with the original purchase - you pay enough for the 735.
I have only used the finish setting, never used the deminsion setting.I can now truly say this thing is a dream to use right out of the box.By the way, I did order the infeed/outfeed tables from Grizzley (best price) and couldn"t beleive how easy they were to install (did this this morning). From what I read in reviews this alone was going to be a test of engineering skills which I don't have. All of my work has been without the infeed/outfeed tables. I have had occassional snipe when I fed the stock in at an angle.
First it was heavy to get out of the box and unto the table I had for it, but not much different than other planers I considered. I have now planned a good bit of short and long stock with amazingly great results. There seemed to be about an even split on positive and negative reviews. I tried again and had very little snipe.
I didnt check any adjustments. Primarily because of the 90 day return policy from Dewalt.Once I got the machine home I was anxious to see (good or bad) just what I had gotten myself into. I read weight is a good thing for a planer Second, I immediatly planed a 2X4 to see how good it worked.
|
