Planers: Thickness and Surface Quality in One Pass
A thickness planer is one of the most transformative tools you can add to a woodworking shop. It takes rough-sawn lumber and surfaced-one-side (S1S) boards and produces perfectly flat, parallel-faced stock at a precise thickness — enabling you to work with cheaper rough lumber and achieve results that only expensive surfaced boards could previously deliver. DeWALT and Milwaukee both offer capable benchtop options.
DeWALT DW735X: The Benchtop Standard
The DW735X is the most widely used benchtop planer in serious woodworking shops. Its three-knife cutter head — with two speeds (96 cuts/inch at 10,000 RPM for finish passes, 179 cuts/inch at a slower feed) — produces an exceptionally smooth surface that requires minimal sanding. The fan-assisted chip ejection system clears chips efficiently, and the extension tables (included in the X version) support long boards without roller stands. At 13 inches wide capacity, it handles all standard lumber widths. The two-column carriage design is more stable than single-column competitors.
Milwaukee M18 FUEL Planer: Cordless Freedom
Milwaukee’s M18 FUEL 3 1/4-inch cordless planer is a different tool for different purposes — it’s a hand planer, not a thickness planer. At 16,500 RPM with a 3.25-inch cutting width, it’s exceptional for trimming door edges, flattening high spots on glued panels, and chamfering edges in the field. It doesn’t replace a thickness planer for milling rough stock, but for contractors doing on-site door and millwork fitting, it’s invaluable. At 4.8 lbs with battery, it’s manageable for extended edge work.
When You Need a Thickness Planer
A benchtop thickness planer (DeWALT DW735, JET JWP-13BT) makes sense when you’re: buying rough-sawn lumber in quantity (significantly cheaper than S4S), re-sawing boards on a band saw and need to clean up the sawn faces, or gluing up panels and need perfectly uniform thickness before final sanding. For shops that work exclusively with pre-dimensioned lumber, a hand planer (corded or cordless) may be sufficient.
Planer Knife Maintenance
Planer knives dull with use and need replacement or rotation. Most benchtop planers use disposable double-edged knives — when one edge dulls, flip the knife; when both edges are dull, replace. Watch for: tearout increasing despite reduced feed rate, machine noise changing pitch, or snipe depth increasing. Keep a set of spare knives on hand — a planer mid-project with no spare knives is a full stop.
Snipe: Understanding and Minimizing It
Snipe — the slightly deeper cut at the beginning and end of a board — is inherent in all thickness planers. Minimize it by: feeding boards end-to-end without gaps, using extension tables to support full board length, and leaving boards slightly long (cut off snipe after planing). The DW735X’s dual-column design reduces snipe compared to single-column benchtop planers.
Browse the DeWALT DW735X, JET benchtop planers, and Milwaukee cordless hand planers at Pro Tools Hub.
