surface planers

[Bill Sticht]

I am a new member and looking for input on the following planers, such as ease of use, noise, servicability, etc. I am considering DeWalt 734 or 735, Delta 22-580 or TP 400LS, and Grizzly G0505

[Jason Beam]

I have a dewalt 734. It has sharpenable knives. Easy as all heck to use. It's the "followup" to the 733. The 733 was HIGHLY touted by most of the magazines and reviews a few years back. The 733 only had a 2-knife head, the 734 has a 3-knife head. I like being able to resharpen my knives a few times before having to recycle them (I never trash steel).

The 735 also has a 3-knife cutter head and 1/2" extra width. But they're disposable. Thin little buggers. It also has two speeds. I opted for the 734 because the extra $200 in price wasn't worth 1/2" and a 2nd speed to me. Considering that no rotary-cut surface will be smooth, no matter how slowly you run it, I never intend for my freshly-planed surface to end up going directly to finishing without some card scraping or planing or at the very least sanding. To me, the extra speed held little value. Plus, the 735 doesn't come with infeed/outfeed tables or a dust chute. That's another 70 bucks or more right there. Compound that with 40 bucks every time the blades need replacing and the 734 was a no-brainer.

Both machines WEIGH a bunch. The 734 tops in at about 90lbs. So moving it around is not a real practical option.

And LOUD. I've never heard a quiet lunchbox planer. I've never heard a single planer that's quiet with wood running through it, so I just keep the earmuffs nearby at all times. Noise levels when cutting wood are really unavoidable unless you're moving to a spiral head that SLICES instead, but those are real expensive and i'm not sure if they're available for lunchies like these. They may be, i've never looked.

I hear some folks really like a few Delta models out there, but I've never tried 'em. I can say for sure you can't go wrong with the DW734, though. :)