Planers/dust collection

[mike wise]

Hello all,
My best friend is buying a 15" planer this weekend. He is looking at the Shop Fox. He is not planning on useing any dust collection with this machine. I am not sure that he will get as good of a job if he does not use a dust collector. What do you guys think. Would you buy a 15" planer if you were not going to use a dust collector?

Thanks for your input.
Mike Wise

[Russ Massery]

I have a 15" planer. wouldn't think of NOT using a dust collector. Besides the collector helps pull the chips away for the cutterhead and feed rollers. Keeping them from getting pressed back into the board.

[Paul Kinneberg]

He will have to use something be it a Shop vac or a DC. He simply will not get it to provide any kind of quality cut IMHO without something.

[Dennis Peacock]

Been there and done that. Not advisable. I burned up two planers that way. They weren't 15" planers, but they were 12"ers......Now, since I'm better edumukated.....I know better than to do ANY planing without some kind of dust collection. To do well on a planer, you need lot's of CFM of air movement.

[lou sansone]

it can be done, but you will end up with little dents in the finished wood from wood chips that should have been ejected, being mashed into the surface of the wood from the outfeed roller ( provided it is a steel outfeed roller ). The other problem is that it makes a real mess unless you are doing it outside some place, like in a garage.

[mike wise]

Thanks for the feed back. I didn't think it sounded like a good idea. And I had hear that you would get chips pressed into the board by the outfeed roller. I am going to try and talk some since into him. And if not when it isn't working very well and he decides to get rid of the planer, because it doesn't finish very well, I'll just help him out and give him 50 cents on the dollar to take it off his hands.

Thanks