The title says it all, do you use a portable surface planer? I've been looking into purchasing one but not sure how much I'll actually use it.
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is this what you are talking about, i built 4 guitars 3 of witch had glue up necks, and the use of one of these was absolutely mandatory , how ever i need one too, i got the store i bought the wood from to use there's for me , think ill go looking for one today.
Thanks, that's what I was looking to use it for....fret boards and any old wood I get making it the same thickness.
I buy all sorts of exotics rough and mill my own. I've also book matched sitka spruce for tops and planed them down to less than a quarter inch with good results.
It really depends on what level of use you are going to get out of it. I don't use mine a lot but that is because I mill up a bunch of what I need at a time. If I had room and money, I would surely get as big of a plane as I could find but this one does a pretty good job only a couple of limitations for our kind of work.
The Craftsman photo is of a joiner. Typical use is to establish a good edge on a board in preparation for gluing up or simply getting the piece square. It can be used for limited thickness planing but is limited by the width of the board you want to plane. These are frequently found at auctions for a fraction of new price. I have never seen a thickness planer for sale at auction. I think many small shops build with dimensional lumber and can't justify the cost. Having been a teacher I always had access to a planer in our school's wood shop so never spent the bucks to get one of my own. The school no longer has a shop and I have never found it necessary to plane anything building CBGs. I have a good band saw and if I need a thin piece I can use it (or my table saw) to resaw a thicker piece.
I have a DW735 (the one you posted a pic of) and love it. I bought mine shortly after they came out and were lower priced, that said I would buy another one at today's price but I'd look a lot harder for a sale or lightly used one first.
I have a Grizzly tools 6" jointer and a craftsman surface planer. The 2 tools are a great combination.
To add besides thicknessing lumber and panel glue ups I've found it makes quick work out of flattening inlays like fret board marker dots. I cut my fret slots a bit deep, drill and glue in my dot material, then a quick trip through the planer with a light cut and the fret board is ready for a final sand, finish, and frets.
That is indeed a Jointer in the first picture, and the planer and jointer are a great combination to have. A few passes over the jointer will cut the cup out of a piece of stock, which then can be run through the thickness planer to bring it down to thickness. A jointer will also true up one edge of a board to go against the table saw fence for straight edging short lengths of stock (no more than about 4'.) I used my jointer to thin down the end of the neck that became my headstock on my first build. I also use my jointer to clean up the mating surfaces of neck scarf joints, and cleaning up the top of the neck after the scarf joint has dried.
The uneven cutting at the ends of the board you're talking about, Don, is called "sniping." It's common - just about all planers snipe to one degree or another. I've seen a couple of planers that sniped as far as 4" (!) into the board. About all you can do is figure out how long the sniped area usually is, on average, and cut the stock to be planed a little long so the sniped area can be cut off.
I use my planer and jointer a lot. I use a lot of reclaimed wood for various projects, and sometimes buy rough lumber at a much cheaper price than S4S or S3S stock sells for. A planer makes quick work of both applications. I don't do any inlay work with mine, but I've heard of a planer being used for that. I tend to think a thickness sander would be a better tool for that application, but if it works for you, then great. I do quite a bit of resawing as well, and can tell you that after slicing a 3/4" board right down the center on the bandsaw, nothing cleans up the sawn surface better than the planer.
So, in a nutshell, if you use a lot of reclaimed wood, do a lot of resawing, laminating, or just need to plane stock down to thicknesses not usually available at the lumber yard, then a planer is the tool to do it with. It's one of those tools that a person could do without, but when you need one, you really need one.
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