There seems to be alot of information, reviews,etc. on 15″ planers such as Jet,Delta,Powermatic and Grizzly. On the other hand there seems to be practically nothing on the smaller industrial 20″ to 24″ planers. Anyhoo, if anyone out there has had experience with one of these ,please give me your opinions.Do you love it, hate it, was it worth 1 to 2K more than the generic 15″ planers? Are they adequate for occasional hard use in a 1 man shop? And probably most importantly, if you could do it again what would you buy.
Thank you kindly,
Glendo.
Replies
Glendo,
Grizzly's Plain-Jane 20" is considered not only a very good value, but an excellent planer as well. Have you thought of looking for a used/reconditioned Oliver or other old machine? Cost a bit more than a new one, but they're in a class far above them.
Jeff
Jeff -
Most of my larger tools were purchased some time ago (measured in years) before I had any idea what differences there might be in things like planers. Mine is a little Dewalt that does an OK job but it suffers from what I'm lead to understand is a problem with all these, shall we call them, consumer grade planers: in and outfeed snipe.
I can overcome this by using a sacrificial frame & sled affair but it's a royal pain. When moving to the larger size machines, Grizzly or whatever, do they do a better job in this regard? Meaning do you eliminate or at least drastically reduce this snipe problem? I'm not above selling this thing I've got in a garage sale and replacing it with something better if, indeed, it is better.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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I have the WoodTek 20" and like it much. The larger capacity is handy. The knives change accurately and easily. About $1200 or so, and a great buy. The worst part was getting it into the basement.
Aren't basement shops fun? A friend of mine built a new 1200 sq ft shop 18 months ago. I think he's spent about 100 hours in it so far.
Jeff
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