Hit 1000 board feet of maple processed in a month and it changed my mind about my planer

I always thought my old lunchbox planer was fine for small jobs, but that volume showed me how much time I was wasting. The snipe on the last few inches of every board added up to hours of extra sanding. Anyone have a good mid-range model they'd suggest for a small shop?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_logan5d ago

My old DeWalt 735 had the same snipe problem until I built a simple infeed and outfeed table from some scrap plywood and melamine. It basically extends the bed by about 18 inches on each side. That fixed 90% of it, and supporting the board ends made a huge difference with longer stock.

hernandez.miles1mo ago

Honestly, that snipe might be a setup issue more than the planer itself. Took me forever to get my old one dialed in right.

miles82529d ago

But what if the planer just has a bad design? Some of the cheaper models have weak beds or rollers that can't be fixed with setup. I've seen ones where the outfeed table sags no matter how you adjust it.