There are sleds for routers - what about planers? sanders?

[Stephen Tashiro]

On the web, there are examples of "sleds" for routers. A person will clamp a wide board to the top of a very flat work table and use the router mounted on a sled to flatten the face of the board. It seems to me that it would just as useful to have such a sled for a hand-held planer and maybe even for a belt sander. But the designers of those tools haven't made accommodations to mount them on homemade base plates like the designers of routers have. Has anyone figured out how build a sled for a hand-held power planer or belt sander in spite of this?

[glenn bradley]

Some belt sander have "frames" (http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/use-a-belt-sander-frame.aspx)available that do what you are asking about. A quality powered hand planer doesn't need one and I don't know that there is a fix for a poor one . . . maybe(?). With or without a powered hand planer is for a little different purpose (mine went in the garage sale for $5).

[Stephen Tashiro]

I have two of those (controversial!) DeWalt planers, so I'm glad to hear about the frame. However, that frame doesn't do what a router sled does. The "skids" of a router sled ride on the level surface of the work table so that the bit transfers, as it were, that level surface to the board being worked on.

Link to a router sled article: http://www.leestyron.com/sled.php

Maybe in skilled hands a hand held power planer doesn't need a sled, but in my hands it could use one.