I'll start by saying I'm just a hobbyist making sawdust in my garage, so limited on space and desire to spend a huge amount of money to create said sawdust. I've had a DeWalt DW735 Planer for at least 10+ years and it has served me well overall, with the exception of the occasional snipe, until now. My first thought was to simply go and buy another one for $600 at the blue store. I already have the extension tables and rolling stand, so it would be easy. I then found that Grizzly (I've never owned a Grizzly tool) has a 13" Planer with a Helical head for $800 delivered. A little more digging I discovered Grizzly also sells a Shelix Cutterhead for the DeWalt as an upgrade. So if I did that, I would be in to the DeWalt at nearly $1,100. So now I'm just a hobbyist that's confused...lol.
So I thought maybe I should ask the far more experienced SMC members for an opinion. It seems for all practical purposes, the Grizzly at $800 and the DeWalt (with upgraded cutterhead) at $1,100 are similarly "equipped" machines. As said, I know nothing about Grizzly, other than reading the reviews. So the unanswerable question is...save the $300 and go with the Grizzly or just go and replace the DeWalt and upgrade (now or eventually) the cutterhead? Also open to other options as well. Woodworking tools/equipment are a very rare commodity on my local CL so not much hope there.
Thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance. I need to replace it as I had just started to plane down some walnut for new living room tables and the bride is getting anxious.