‘Budget’ surface planer

[azk404]

I am toying with the idea to buy a surface planner to accompany my thicknesser. Ideally it would be something long lasting such as the Axminster versions, but in a bid not to spend to much while still having the ability to process rough timber I was wondering if anyone had some luck some of the more budget machines.

By budget I would probably say £800 max but better to be 200-300 lower and then eventually upgrade in the future.

Cheers
A

 

[Orraloon]

A thing to be aware of with surface planers is the table length. The short benchtop jobs will only really handle short lengths of wood up to about 1.5m. New budget end jobs will also lack quality. Be on the lookout for good old cast iron with good long tables. You may need to replace bearings, belts and blades but they are basically simple machines.
I Bought The Free-est Jointer On Marketplace [Restoration] - YouTube
Something like that will last a few more lifetimes.
Regards
John

 

[clogs]

width of the blades can add a lot of money to the price......look at Wadkin and the like....
I wont part with my 6-8incher......but it's sooooooo long....prob around 6feet overall, not practical in a small shop....

got fed up with those cheapie units.....
some may laugh at this but this combi unit works well for me as I was just able to get in and out of the van on my own......

perhaps get rid of what u have and go combi, may take up less room...?.
U can get a wheel kit for them quite cheap....
plus u should be able to get a used 240v one for well under your limit.....
def not as noisy as those little screamer planers.........

PS mine has never been any trouble in 25 years I've owned it.....doing higher end shop fitting work....lots of hardwood......
I was toying with a helical carbide blade kit from the US but at over £50 !!!!!!, more than the machine worth....
last time I bought blades, non gen were pretty cheap and last as long as the orig......
seem to remember 50 odd quid for gen and 15 quid from china.....bought chinese with no regrets at all.....
gen blades are prob made in china anyway knowing D.W.
good luck.....

 

[Fitzroy]

I have a dewalt DW1150 which is for all intents the same as many of the budget models still on sale today. It is both a planer and thicknesser. I have not come across a budget surface planer other than the triton one which really is tiny with only a 770mm table length

The dewalt is an adequate machine, it has good width at 250mm but I struggled to get timber beyond c. 1.5m long flat and straight, as Orraloon also said. I now use it solely as a thicknesser with tables removed and stored somewhere..........hmmm.

I also have a Wadkin BFT9 surface planer. It has tables at 1.5m and I can flatten and straighten to 8' with confidence, never tried longer. The table rise and fall mechanism is not perfect and can suffer droop after many years hard work resulting in tables being out of plane and requiring shimming to correct. I however absolutely love mine, for me a top feature is the motor sits under the out feed table so the machine can be located relatively close to a wall. They come up fairly often at £300-£500.

I think if you're lookgin for a planer only machine your choices are really limited to the axminster level machines or a 2nd hand to keep the cost in your budget.