DEWALT Benchtop Planer, 15-Amp, 12-1/2-Inch, 3-Knife Cutter, 20,000 RPM, Corded (DW734)

First, a little praise for Amazon. $25.00 discount, free shipping, and free set of spare knives (didn't even know these were included.), resulted in a delivered price of [...]. That's the best deal in town, especially when you consider the free [...] knives. Now, the planer. It's heavy. Really heavy. But that's a good thing. It took only 10 minutes to set up, read the manual, and make my first sawdust. Initial results were excellent. Glass-smooth surfaces on White Oak, Poplar, and Red Oak. Minimum snipe limited to ends of board. No snipe detected elsewhere. Nice fit & finish. Decent manual. Good ergonomics. Plenty powerful. So far, highly recommended. I'll update after a few hundred board feet. UPDATE - 2 Years Later I'm still very pleased. I've put in excess of 1000 bf through the planer now. It hasn't missed a beat. Unbelieveably, I'm still on my first set of knives. They are a little nicked now due to some hard maple I put through it a few weeks ago, but I'm not yet sufficiently motivated to change them. This machine has served me well, and shows no signs of slowing down. It still ranks 5 stars. UPDATE - 1 Week since Last Update I broke down and turned the knives over. I cut myself in the process. Clumsy! A few cuts after freshening the knives made it obvious that I should have done this some time ago. The planer performs like new. Still 5 stars. Update - At 4 Years Still 5 stars. I turn or replace the knives every 6 months or so. The knives don't like Hard Maple, but all other species do fine (including Walnut & Oak). The results delivered by this planer are excellent. Update - At 6 Years Still going strong. Just added a Wixey digital readout that I got from Amazon. Still 5 stars. Update - At 12 Years Still going strong. Feed rollers started to slip, so I cleaned them with a stiff brush and alcohol. Worked like a champ. Back to 100% function. Obviously a great planer. Update - At 15 Years Seriously. 15 years. My kid is now grown and off to college. The planer still delivers. I planed some Walnut a couple days ago. Fantastic results. Clearly, I got my money worth. Would buy another in a minute should the need arise. Update - At 19 Years The planer and I have grown old together. It functions far better than I do. The only problem I’ve had is a broken tab on the dust collection fitting. That’s trivial, considering all the use this machine has had. A great product.

This is my first thickness planer and I have run approximately 10 BF through this thing. I know, it's almost all the wood in the world. THAT SAID- Out of the box, it ran beautifully and the knives are very sharp. Super smooth finish. Very easy to operate. Just spend about 5-10 minutes screwing around with it and you'll totally understand it. There definitely is 2" of snipe on either side, but as I learn how to feed the boards a little better I think that can be minimized. I bought this to speed up the process of building a new workbench to replace the hand me down monstrosity that came with my garage... I can already tell this will be a huge help. I will try to come back and update the review over time. UPDATE: After one session running about 384 linear feet of 2x4s and 320 linear feet of 2x6s (building a workbench out of Doug. Fir lumber from the big box store), I can say this is a great little machine. It doesn't seem to have any problem taking a 1/16" cut off a 6" wide board. Once you get the hang of feeding boards through it properly there is literally no snipe. It's a little more difficult with boards shorter than the beds. That will take some practice. One really annoying issue though- the dust port clogs really easily if you don't have a DC hooked up to it. After about 10 passes it seems to get clogged and it begins to shoot all the shavings out the front of the machine. I have a 1hp DC, but I don't have a separator on it yet so it gets clogged almost instantly when using the planer.

Update May 2017: 1) infeed rollers are awesome, few problems keeping stock feeding into the cutting heads. 2) Snipe: that gouge when feeding material into and when exiting from the the cutters-- DeWalt says that using the cutting head clamp-down reduces this problem -- I agree totally. No snipe on my redwood planks. 3) Chip exhaust remains an irritation: the chips are adequately collected by the plastic shroud over the exhaust, but the 4-to 2.25" reducer has a square shoulder that tends to plug up. I recommend tossing the reducer, and running a 4" exhaust tube from the shroud to a sawdust barrel or collector system Note; this planer works well, and you will be amazed at how quickly the shavings accumulate! Very pleased with this planer! End update. I purchased this as a replacement for an older RIGID planer. That old machine continues to work for resurfacing smaller items, such as 1x2 and 1x4 soft woods such as cedar and redwood. I also purchased this based on my long-standing success with DeWalt power tools in general; and am not disappointed. Usage: resurfacing recycled redwood and cedar planks. (Given the current costs on these woods, often in rough shape from the local home supply marts, this planer becomes an immediate asset!) PROS: Heavy, does not sitter across its dedicated work surface, a smaller re-purposed office table on casters with a rubberized pad under the planer. I can feed material into the machine without it budging (the stand sometimes moves, but not the planer). Easy to set up, easy to adjust; depth meters and indicators all seem easy to see. Appreciate the 4-point carriage lockdown, the cutting head does not move while feeding material, typically long 2x6 planks in my case. My old Rigid was not (rigid), the lockdown was a friction lever and easily over-ridden. Triple knives. I expect these will last a long time on softer woods, no experience to offer when planing hard woods. Feeds material (2x6 planks) smoothly and consistently, no observed slippage. Resulting planed surface comes out beautiful... again, softer redwood and cedar. I can take a planed plank and proceed with staining and finishing with no intervening sanding needed. Very nice time saver. Nyah: The chip exhaust is fairly effective, particularly when looking at the amount of material coming off the knives. Connects to a standard 2.25" sawdust hose, easily redirected to a sawdust barrel or collector system. It's plastic, but so was the old Rigid exhaust and that survived a decade of use. Cord is heavy duty but could be longer; could also benefit with a plug head that sports a clip for keeping the coiled cord from... uncoiling. I have these on my other DeWalt power tools, would be nice to also have it on this machine as well. Small details keep us happy. Cons: regarding chip removal... even with a chip collector, I find a lot of chip blow back onto the feed side. Makes things somewhat messy, dust-wise. Perhaps a vacuum system on the outfeed exhaust would help, but probably will not eliminate removed material from accumulating on the infeed side. Bottom line: recommended for the weekend wood warrior.

I have been using this planer for about 3 months, and am still happy with it. A couple things could be better, but for the most part it has been one of those tools that you can rely on to do what it is supposed to. === The Good Stuff === * My planer is permanently mounted to a work table with four mounting bolts. These are not included-but they would never guess the right length anyway, so not a big deal. The planer is heavy, the instructions say 80 LBS, but it seemed lighter than that, so you may need a second person to help lift it into place. * Within an hour of opening the box (and most of that time was spent reading the manual thoroughly), I was planing cedar. The tables seemed perfectly adjusted out of the box, and I got very smooth finishes with no snipe at all. Operation is relatively simple and mostly intuitive. * Most of my planing is oak-typically resurfacing oak that I have reclaimed from old furniture or cabinets (much cheaper to buy oak at a thrift store than a lumberyard). It does an excellent job on oak, although you will occasionally get some slight snipe at the ends of previously finished lumber. * I do not have a dust collection system, but my large shop vac attached to the rear port does a very nice job on dust and shavings. I do get a little dust, but very minimal amounts, and most of that is probably blow-by from the hose connectors. If I wasn't so lazy, a more permanent "clamped" connection would work better. I do use a respirator when planing old pre-finished wood- there is no telling what is in the finishes. * After planing about 1200 lf of oak, mostly 5-7" wide, the blades started showing signs of dullness. Cuts were still clean, just not as smooth as they used to be. Swapping the knives turned out to be about a 20 minute project the first time, although I am sure it will be about half that next time. (Careful, real easy to cut yourself). I also added a "lap counter" to the side of the table- the kind track coaches use to count laps. They are about $5, and I use them to track how much wood goes across the planer. One click = 10'. Not 100% accurate, but good for monitoring blade use. * The small gauge to estimate the amount of material to be removed works great! I have found with planing oak that two or three very small passes (1/32 or so) works about the best, although you can sneak by with a 1/16 then a 1/32 without much difference. * I seldom plane anything longer than 8', and so far have not felt the need to purchase or build any extension feed tables. === The Not-So-Good Stuff === * The height gauge is a bit inexact for my needs. I added a Wixey 850 to the planer, and love it. This should have been a part of the planer to start with. * There is a "hard stop" for common thicknesses. I use the 3/4" one quite a bit, but I find it to be a little unrepeatable (+/- 0.08 or so.. Not a major deal, but occasionally enough to be annoying.. The problem is that while the stop is fixed, you have to rely on "feel" to determine how tight to crank down on the head adjustment against the stop. The Wixey has been repeatable to 0.02 or so. * I wish the in and outfeed trays would fold up. They stick out over the front and rear of my work bench, and I hate having tools get bumped. * The on/off switch is easy to use, provided you are standing in the front of the unit. However at about the half-way point in any planing, you are now standing at the back of the unit, and there is no way to get to the switch quickly in an emergency. As with all my tools, I added "panic buttons to the tables, and in this case, added on front and rear. === Summary === While there are some parts of this tool that I wasn't totally thrilled with, they were relatively easy to correct, and the planer is now a trusted and often-used part of my shop. So far it has been used for roughly 75% red oak, 15% cedar and 10% poplar, and has performed well on all of these. I have trued-up some cupped wood without much trouble, although the cups were relatively slight-maybe 1/8 or so.

First the positive: excellent, glass smooth finish. I have planed soft pine to rosewood and ebony with no problems. Remembering to unlock the head before adjusting the depth of cut helps; there is a learning curve here. However, there is no need to lock it with every pass, especially when starting with rough lumber. If you make the last few passes taking off only whisker, with the lock set, the snipe is virtually no existent and the finish smooth. The dust collector works better with a 4" hose instead of using the adapter provided and a 2" hose. The preset thickness stops are useful and accurate enough for most planning purposes. The star wrench needed to change blades is conveniently attached to the guard, making it handy. Blade change is easy as no alignment tools are needed. Negative: The blade replacement was made easy with the blades being aligned by a set of pins on the head unit. However, there is virtually no side-to-side movement (less than 1 mm). If you nick the blades, you cannot effectively shift them. The unit I got had nicked blades when I got it! It was sold as new and appeared boxed as new. However, I did notice that the protective plastic covering that should have been on the bed of the unit was removed, with only traces of it on the edge. On the positive side, Dewalt did send me replacement blades without question. Bottom Line: A great unit for the price.

I'm new to woodworking and bought this when it went on sale on Amazon. I have now used it to plane down some 4/4 cherry to 3/4 for a bookcase and a cabinet that I built and some quilted maple for the cabinet doors. I had to learn how to use a melamine shelf as a planer sled with some shims, but it has worked out ok so far. When I got it, I first build the planer stand that is pictured and although I don't have any experience, this little mobile cart has made it so easy to use. It also folds up and stores nicely in the corner of my shed/shop. I'd highly recommend this stand from woodsmith especially if you're tight on space. As far as the planer itself, it has been nothing but great. Sometimes it seems to have a little snipe, other times, I can't see any. I read tons of reviews and this planer is what everyone says. To note, I hooked up my ridgid 6hp shop vac along with a dust deputy to the 2.5" adapter that comes with this planer. Outside of the one time where I wasn't paying attention and let the dust deputy get completely full, there is basically zero sawdust anywhere. So glad I purchased this tool!!!!

Did a lot of research on different available planers, almost went with a DW735, but chose this one instead for my purposes.. Everything works smoothly, does a great job planing down lumber, and I have had ZERO - yes, zero - snipe - although I rarely take off more than 1/16 to 1/8 inch per pass - handles hardwoods nicely, and the size and shape are what I had wanted so I can build it into the work station space I have available.. (It was originally planned around getting a Ryobi planer of the same basic profile). It has plenty of power, blades have stayed sharp after 300 board feet of hardwood and the indicator gauges are extremely accurate - when the gauge measures 5/16", you can be sure that each board you put through is going to be exactly 5/16" all the way through. Overall I am very happy with the machine, and has served perfectly for my needs. Construction of the machine is FAR superior to the "China" models such as Ryobi or Wen, - Height adjustments are accurate and when locked down, they stay locked... (matter of fact they don't change even if I forgot to lock it down) .. so it is well worth the extra money

This was the first planer that I have purchased and I am happy that I went with this brand and model. It made easy work of having to plain 3/4" stock down to 1/2". The planer feeds the wood smoothly through the cutting blades. I had no issues with it.

Works great, I have been planing 4 inch thick stair treads and the out come has been fantastic. The snipe at the end is either non existent or easily controlled. Easy to operate and adjust as you go.

En general es muy buena maquina, solo hay que afinar bien los ajustes, sobre todo el de el espesor, venia descalibrado por aprox 1mm, la perilla de topes preestablecidos no es precisa, tambien varian por hasta 1mm, el problema es que esta no hay manera de ajustarla, el costo puede parecer elevado pero la calidad y el tiempo del trabajo final vale lo que cuesta, si quieres hacer muebles o productos finos de madera natural esta maquina es indispensable, solo para gente que sabe la diferencia, se debe tener cuidado con la profundidad de cepillado para no forzar la maquina sobre todo en maderas duras, es mejor ir cepillando poco a poco, el manual trae una tabla que indica las recomendaciones de profundidad de desbaste, en conclusion es buena herramienta, la compre de importacion y llego antes de lo indicado y en perfectas condiciones, completamente nueva

Un cepillo de muy alta calidad. Vale cada centavo. Fácil de operar, seguro y deja la madera muy bien cepillada. Es como un tanque, y por lo mismo es muy pesado. Aunque lo puede cargar una sola persona fuerte, recomiendo que se cargue entre dos.

Easy to use. Professional results. 200.00$ off helped too!

I have used this a few times and it works great. The wood comes out smooth and even. No issues