Best Benchtop Thickness Planer ~ Head-to-Head

[Music] in this video we're gonna show you how we tested eight bench top thickness planers and we ranked them in order to give you the best portable thickness planer thickness planers are primarily a woodworking tool but it's also often used by finish and trim carpenters in the workshop and also sometimes out in the field thickness planers perform three very important tasks for woodworkers and carpenters things like smoothing rough stock making the faces of wood boards parallel and of course what everybody thinks of is bringing the stock to a consistent and specific thickness the eight models that we tested are listed in the description below and also in the article on toolbox buzz con we did our best to reproduce real-world use and we check things such as snipe which equals wasted board feet we looked at no load feed speed we compared it to load feed speed we looked at overall quality of the plain board and its core of course features of the tools so all right let's let's just get down to it let's talk about the features and specifications the portable thickness planers have they got a lot to squeeze in they need a lot of power in a small footprint and they need to be reasonably sized so you can move them around the shop but even with these limitations there are some substantial differences in size and weight of the machines that we tested and they range from 58 all the way up to 92 pounds and look at the article for more detail on that the bottom line is every machine is capable of planing boards between 12 and 13 inches wide six inches tall the specifics and those differences of each planer are listed in the article on toolbox bus comm in fact if you want more specific detail on these planers you need to read the article because the video that I do is always a shorter more condensed version let's talk about the testing procedures and our evaluations for this evaluation we use several types of wood on the planer for the planers in order to give you a perspective on performance so we looked at we looked at planing the following boards we planed one by full mahogany decking 1 by 6 white oak 1 by 6 hard maple and 1 by 8 poplar boards and we evaluated several categories including pretest so we pre pretest inspection of the tool and adjustment right out of the box we looked at feed rate speed we looked at the maximum depth of cut performance and also depth of cut accuracy as well as we looked at snipe evaluation and surface finish evaluation because that's a super important if you think about it and then lastly we looked at blade change difficulty and timing so for the pretest inspection and adjustments we basically unbox these tools put them on the defense top and we adjusted we checked and adjusted the infeed and outfeed tables and we wanted to do that to ensure that they were level with the planer Bend this is important and you need to you need to do this in order to achieve and and and and get representative tests right the Aged shift accuracy of the tables varied between different models we used a level to set the tables and to measure a vertical gap between the infeed and the outfeed tables we adjusted the infeed not feet tables and we checked the level across the entire machine so we found the worst vertical deviation measure from the edge of that outfeed table right where the planer Bettis was nearly an eighth of an inch above the surface of the planer bed table that's outrageous that hasn't you kid to do that so all the machines except at the wall DW 735 axe needed minor adjustments to reach level surface most of the planners utilize what's called a bolt and nut adjustment to move that table vertically and it's a captured nut so it holds it in place all of the units had similar table adjustments but one we were really impressed with the makita planer it uses a set screw adjustment so the makita machine has by far the easiest adjustment measurement or adjustments of all the planers there were four set screws two on each table and it's easy to reach and we found the dial just you could dial in what you needed so nice look we're not gonna rank this category because we feel that a benchtop planer like these tools always require some sort of setup and fine-tuning of the eight planers Makita definitely had the best system for making those adjustments dust collection while we didn't rank dust collection it is absolutely worth discuss discussing with you look thickness planers they produce a ton high high volume of wood chips and dust and more than so and then they're totally any tool in my shop all of the planers except one come with a dust road so the planners can be attached to a dust collector the porter-cable does not come with a shroud and there's no accessory available so anyone that is interested in this model you just got to be prepared and plant for cleanup and and and do that as part of your project it's part of your plan all of the other planers tested worked well when attached to dust collection and had very little variation in performance among the different models so we did not rank them feed rate or speed the winner for feed rate was the DeWalt DW 735 x and we recorded the no-load feed rates for each planer to do this we basically adjusted each plaintiffs depth until it just it contacted the wood but did not reach the depth Lord actually the cutter blades would cut into the wood in order to record the no load feed for the rate section of wood that we were looking at we wanted to record 45 inches for each sample we use the 60 inch long board we made marks at 45 inches so that we could start a timer and end a timer and our marks so this allowed us to visually time the 45 inch section as it passed by a reference point on the planer for each planer and we did this test three times each to come up with an average and we use this comparison between the no load and the fully loaded feed rates of each machine later on so we were looking at these we were looking to see which plane has had enough power to sustain the no load feed rates throughout different boards that we plank and this just gives us a good relative comparison of how the motors performed under load that's why we did it the DeWalt 735 X and the Triton TPT 125 were able to keep their feed rates close to the no load feed rate when compared - the rest in that field we we did rank this category as it's a great way to evaluate the power of these planers so the top three included the DeWalt 735 x the triton TPT 125 and the Delta 22 - 590 all right maximum depth of cut performance so we we wanted to we wanted to know how each machine performed at maximum loads right so which results from cutting a maximum depth in a single pass that they're obviously under manufactured recommendations so more specifically we wanted to know which planer pulled more power maximum amp draw and which one had the best feed performance relative to that no load condition that we tested for so during this test we set up each plane into its maximum depth of cut and that's as recommended to them by the manufacturer it's usually three thirty-seconds of an inch we ran four species of wood through through all all the planers we recorded the time of the cut and the amperage profile for each cut each wood sample for each machine was 45 inches in length this was this was the same length of our no load speed that I mentioned earlier and our team we basically we set up a fluke three zero zero one Fc recording ammeter and we measured we measured the values on a one-second interval and then we sent that data via wireless link to our computers for analysis later on so the wood samples used in this were one by four mahogany decking one by a poplar one by six oak and one by six maple we knew that the 1 by 8 poplar at maximum cut was going to tax the power of these planers but we also wanted to see how the different hardwoods would exercise the planer capacity so while we're not ranking this category we do feel that the data was interesting and informative as you can see when you look at the data the DeWalt 735 x pull some serious amps on the load the high amps and it points out to much more powerful motor in that unit the power difference was clear during the planing operations as it didn't seem to care what we put through it it just ate the wood up it never bought nothing it just beautiful so it's important to note that if you're gonna buy the DeWalt 735 X you're gonna want to use a dedicated 20 amp circuit as it's going to run better than a 15 amp circuit I was surprised we have 20 amps here in the shop I was surprised we weren't blowing circuits let's talk about depth of cut accuracy because the DeWalt 734 one that all planners have these dials and you can move the cutter heads up and down in depth of cut on each model the dial indicates how far the heads move up and down per revolution of the dial and we use calipers to measure the average thickness for each wood sample and after a pass to remove three thirty-seconds of an inch we then compared how accurately each planer was able to do that and the average deviation for that three thirty-seconds of an inch and as you can see above and in our charts the DeWalt DW 734 performed the best with an average deviation from three thirty-seconds of just under two one thousandths of an inch now the DeWalt 735 X came in second and it was just over for one thousandth of an inch and that was followed by the rigid our four 333 our four 43:31 which was just five one thousandths of an inch last place was tightened and tightened came in or averaged I should say three hundredths of an inch deviation snipe evaluation we tested how much material would be lost as a snipe in other words how much you cutting off the board to get your project done we selected maple wood for the snipe test and we thought that the lighter color and the type grain structure of this maple wood or basically we might show the location and the depth of the snipe better than the other words I think there was a good decision on our part so for this test we set all the plane is to a uniform depth of three thirty-seconds we started the piece of the wood in the first roller and then we let the planer just take it we took our hands off and we let it go right through the planer and it would drop on the as it came up the outfeed we then rubbed chalk powder blue chalk powder in the last six inches of each board to show to bring out the condition of the Snipe visually so we could capture it photographs and stuff like that we recorded the ridge of each snipe so that we could measure that amount of material that each planer produced and basically cruised it as waste because you have to cut that off in order to keep on uniform thickness what's interesting about this daughter is how well the snipe length correlates to the distance between the actual rollers inside the planers the distance between the cutting heads in the rollers the length of snipe of all the models we tested nearly mimic that distance the nice thing is that the state should be predictable for each model and it allows you to plan accordingly just play an extra waste users of the DeWalt 735 X will ultimately waste more material over the life of their planer however with all the planners having a relative amount same amount of Snite we're not ranking it because it was so close all of them was so close we're just going to let you see the information and be able to compare yourself one very important evaluation was the surface finish and now the winner that was at the Walt 735 X another consideration when evaluating planer is surface finish and thickness planers are used we you know obviously you're rotating these boards to shave off the surface and as a result that rotational movement take small size bites or chunks are removed with each blade contact on that surface and that results in very slight ridges mil marks that are left on the board we call a milling marks mill marks planers can also take out chunks and we refer to that as scholars the scalloping and that's a surface observation between the mill marks and the scallops the board needs more or less sanding or prep to create a finished surface that you can paint stain or clear finish so we used chalk again to the surface to highlight the milling marks and bring out the scallops and we did a visual inspection of this we also evaluated the smoothness by feeling the surfaces and try to come up with a very subjective ranking of these planers based on the maple that we did the maple tests while all the plaintiffs produce a smooth finish to the touch there was quite a variation of smoothness resulting from the mill marks and scallops so there was the different citizen and finishing the DeWalt 735 X was by far the best finish of all the samples we planed the amplitude of the milling marks was consistently smaller and there was very little scalloping on the surface compared to the other planar so that gave the nicest finished by far it was just it was no comparison this is likely attributed to the fact that it's got a powerful motor it's got three blades did well second place was the Triton the TP t125 followed by the rigid the are 4331 and third place both the Triton and the Reid the rigid had similar results very close coming in fourth was the Delta the 22 590 with minimal milling marks but some noticeable scalloping let's talk about blade chains evaluations and difficulty it's easy or difficult to change a blade in any given machine we get that our crew took each machine armed with the instructions and we change the blade and we timed it and we evaluated the difficulty and what was involved obviously the plane is with three blades take a little bit more time than two blades we get that but this is a process but this is this process easier on some machine not some of the machines and other machines so the times required to change the blades varied right from 11 minutes all the way up to 25 minutes the reality is though that you might only change the blades once a year maybe so the difference really didn't matter to us to warrant whether you would buy this machine based on 11 or 25 minutes therefore we're not gonna rank this category we didn't we simply share the data with you so that you can see the blade changed time and that it wasn't really an overly complicated process another thing we looked at was warranty warranties are really important to some users and many of you have been asking us to include them in our reviews so we did while ranking the warranties might seem simple it's not it's not at all they're all different we decided to list them rather than rank them ultimately warranties can be tough issue and how easily you get a warranty service is likely to be as important to how many years the warranty covers so we'll let you be your own make your own determination on which warranty appeals to your best but we got to list it and we go into detail in the article on it price evaluation the winner of the price evaluation was the Porter Cable the PC 305 Petey price is a huge part of the equation when determining which tool is best for you there is a huge difference in pricing in this test from the low planer at 300 all the way up to the high planer at 600 we're ranking these straight on the lowest to highest with prices available right now at the time of the filming of this video we've realized that a value proposition that many people will will look at and and will factor into their overall ranking when price and other categories are combined but we're going to show this as a rank finishing with the best price was the porter cable and that rounded up around $320 the most expensive planer was the makita to 0 1 2 NB and that was six hundred and fifty dollars so who has the overall best winner best bets top thickness planer it was the DeWalt 735 X and here again we're trying to rank these tools in this head-to-head to give you the winner the more that we do the more we learn and in this evaluation we've taken a slightly different approach some of the categories that we set out to evaluate we decided not to include in our final ranking and there was reasons for that and I kind of went through those reasons however we do provide you with all of the information from all the categories we looked at because we feel it important to some of the readers also the more that we do these some folks comment about how they would weigh things differently in different categories that's all great feedback but ultimately we need to come up with a winner our winner so but each of you can take the data that we've presented and you can weigh it differently you can do whatever you want with the data we did and you can best match your needs and come up with your own best winner a winner so we rank the planers in four categories for our final evaluation finishing in first place by a large large margin margin was a Dewalt DW 735 X and this wasn't a surprise as we several of us have this planer and we've been using it for a long time in our shops and it's really the best benchtop thickness planer on the market without a doubt what surprised us was the second and third place winners so the Triton the TP T 125 and the Ridgid the r 4331 if you're looking for a good performing affordable planer the Triton is absolutely worth noting and looking at the rigid has a really nice lineup of woodworking tools as well and often goes unnoticed and it was really nice to see them perform well in this category while the Delta 22 590 finished near the end of this evaluation the entire team felt like it was a nice planer to consider you're just gonna have to do a little bit more surface prep the makita is an extremely well-built well-built and really nice featured planer but the price wasn't as competitive and the finish at least on the materials that we tested we're nearly as good as some of the other models that we looked at so there you have it I sincerely hope that you enjoyed this video please comment and subscribe we welcome your comments and we'd love to have your support and and get your feedback also please check us out on Instagram and Facebook we have two channels each toolbox buzz and Concord carpenter both have Instagram and Facebook thanks for watching guys [Music] you you

Channel: A Concord Carpenter / ToolBoxBuzz

Views: 768,990

Rating: 4.8882232 out of 5

Keywords: diy, how to, step by step, tools, reviews, carpentry, remodel, construction, head-to-head, tool test, tool review, porter cable, triton, makita, dewalt, delta, thickness planer, benchtop planer, workshop, woodshop, woodworking, TPt125, R4331, PC305TP, DW735X, DW734, 33-555, 55-590, 2012NB, wood planer

Id: 08NRFG7zoWI

Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2019