Hello John White,
I would like to purchase a planer or a combo planer jointer. I live in Italy and our garage/houses are limited to 3KW consumption before the breaker drops (no hairdryer and wasingmachine together) and my basement shop is small. I make furniture as well as a few boats and until now all handtools. Having recently added a Dewalt bandsaw I now want more power.
Would you buy a benchtop planer with the width of 31cm (12 1/2″) or go for a combination machine that is 26 cm (9.5″) that would do both planing and jointing. Both have a power consumption that is acceptable. Going to a combo machine that is 12 1/2″ is now 380 volts and I don’t have it, I have only 220 50hz. I don’t quite have a feel for how important the extra 2-2 1/2″ planing width would be. I suppose I could always rip on the band saw, joint, plane and reglue (I have accepted the limits here!)
Any input or thoughts from an expert would be greatly appreciated. Cost of the units are about the same here – I can get the dewalt or makita planer for about 600-700 euro (1000 USD) or the combo taiwan but good quality for about 800 euro.
Unfortunately, used machiines here are all from professionals and use 380-400 volts.
Thanks
Jim Farley
Replies
There is no right or wrong answer to this, but here is my thinking on the subject:
If you are comfortable using hand planes to flatten one face of a board, you can quickly but roughly flatten one side of the stock by hand with a scrub plane and then pass it through the 12 1/2" planer to flatten the unplaned side. You can then flip the board over to machine the hand planed surface on a second pass, resulting in a flat, even thicknessed, board up to 12+ inches wide. This approach allows you to work with wider boards and the dedicated planers are simple sturdy machines and would cost a bit less.
The combination machines would allow you to more quickly prepare the stock but at a higher initial cost for the machine and at the loss of a few inches in the maximum width of the wood you can use. I have only seen one or two of the smaller Asian made combination machines here in the U.S. and I was not impressed with their quality, but you may be looking at a better quality I haven't worked with.
Combination machines also have limitations with their short tables and sometimes awkward changeover procedures between jointing and thickness planing.
Another item to consider with either machine is that they produce a blizzard of shavings. You will need to have some sort of dust collection system or be able to set up outdoors and just blow the chips into the air. Blowing the shavings into the air in a small shop isn't a good idea. A shop vac isn't adequate for controlling the shavings, you will need at least a 1 1/2 hp dust collector with a minimum of a 4" hose hooked directly to the machine.
Hope this helps,
John White
Edited 6/14/2007 10:24 pm ET by JohnWW
Hello John,
Thank you very much! I do feel better going with the Dewalt planer instead of the combo machine. I am happy with the Dewalt Bandsaw 876 and the simplicity of the planer without changeover appeals to me. Thank you for the suggestion on the handplaning, surfacing and resurfacing the hand-planed side. I love handplanes!
Have a great day and best regards from Italy!
Jim
Glad I could help.
Ciao!
John W.
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