hand held electric planers

[bartypit]

Hi
Has anyone any experience with hand held planers, space means I have to think about buying one, are they any good for preparing timber for hand planing?

cheers

 

[Smudger]

I've got a couple. I've used them for hogging (on construction timber), and for removing a lot of material quickly from doors. Otherwise, to be honest, I haven't used them all that much, I prefer to use hand planes.

 

[Mike Wingate]

I have an Elu. It is the least used tool in my workshop. I use it for trimming doors and windows. I did level a workbench top, but use a router and jig for that now.

 

[shipbadger]

Funnily enough there's been an electric plane and a very old Record sat on my bench for the last three weeks whilst I fit out my campervan. Your original question, can it be used to prepare wood for hand planing was the bit that took my eye. The anwer is yes, but in three weeks I've used mine once and lost count of the times I've reached for the hand plane. In short, has its uses but if I hadn't been given it by the widow of a friend I may have considered it money poorly spent.

Tony Comber

 

[xy mosian]

I've had a Makita planer for a few years now. I find it extremely useful as I don't have a planer/thicknesser. I have made up a jig to allow thicknessing, along the lines of the Bosch, and although the maximum depth is 80mm it is adequate for rails and legs etc.. Finest thicknessing I have managed is around 0.5mm in softwood, not bad me thinks.
The planer will remove up to 3mm in one pass, but of course that does not guarantee flatness, so, as with most things it is better to take many passes with a finer cut.
Certainly mine is good enough to take timber from sawn to hand planing. On occasion I have taken timber from sawn to sanding or scraping. I suppose setting the blades is the area where most fettling can be done. Mine were set using a straight edge dragging method, sorry I cannot remember the reference, but I seem to remember setting a drag of about 1mm, I may be wrong there. The other thing to look out for, as with floor standers, is the plane of the beds being parallel. Mine needed a bit of paper in one corner and two in another.
By far the biggest drawback is the distance that chips are sent flying around the workshop, a few pieces of sheet material can direct most into a suitable pile if you have a machine with no collection facility like mine.

hope this helps

xy

 

[chippy1970]

I have always used them for years on site I have an old Elu which is more of a two handed planer which I have had for ages and a recently bought Festool one handed planer which is great. I dont think I would use them for PAR'ing lots of timber but for just the odd bit maybe they would do you.

 

[Smudger]

Tell me more about this Bosch jiggy thing - one of mine is a Bosch. The other one I don't use much; I lent it to a mate and it came back with bits of his leg in the dist bag...

 

[SammyQ]

For on-site rough dimensioning of - particularly - doors, power hand planers are hard to beat. Some of the glues used in commercially produced doors are difficult to work, blunting hand planes quickly.

Secondly, on-site, time is money. When I were a nipper (in the '60's) joiners were expected to 'hang' two front or back doors a day with a hand tool chest. This meant: frame checked and final fixed, solid wood doors cut and planed to size, hinges and all funiture installed, first coat of primer on. Recently, I hung five internal solid wood doors in just over 4 hours, with a power hand planer and a router taking much of the 'grunt'. Power tools equate to a quicker sign-off; ergo, more potential for earnings.

Mine? An old B&D 725. Magic.

Sam

 

[xy mosian]

Smudger,
I just looked on the Bosch site, nothing there that looks like the jig thingy I remember. However, the plane is set to sit loosely on the open end of a 'U' shaped box. The box is longer than the plane with some depth and the sides are made of some sheet material. Within the box is an adjustable 'bed' for the material to be slid along, hand power I'm afraid, this bed is adjustable for height with relation to the sole of the plane. On the original all the bits were castings and the height/thickness adjustment was calibrated and a single point locking. The bed on my wooden jig is of 3" x 2" and is clamped by long coach bolts with wing nuts. Setting is by steel rule. Again on the original the plane is/was held down by long springs, mine relies on the weight of the makita. In use I remove material as allowed by the setting of the planer until the planer rests on its seating. That way if it is course work I can remove say 2mm each pass or 0.5mm for finer work. The top edge of the box is shaped to stop the plane wandering off. In my case the box sides are of 10mm ply shaped around the casing of the planer and strategically placed screws, in the ply edge, were adjusted to set the thing parallel to the bed.

If you want more details let me know.

xy

 

[bartypit]

Thanks everyone for the reply, the reason I ask is that I have a planer thicknesser, a Fox, and I don't really have space for it in our new house, although i only bought it last year!(anyone want to buy it?)
I previously had a separate thicknesser, only from B & Q, but it was quite good, so I am thinking of getting a better one, like maybe the DeWault, and making do with a hand held just to get the worst of the material off, and then hand plane before thicknessing. Just a bit worried that the hand held planer, because it doesnt have a large 'bed', won't take off the high points .

on another note, anyone know if it's a good idea to try and sharpen tct saw blades?

 

[Steve (Correze)]

I previously had a separate thicknesser, only from B & Q, but it was quite good, so I am thinking of getting a better one, like maybe the DeWault, and making do with a hand held just to get the worst of the material off, and then hand plane before thicknessing. Just a bit worried that the hand held planer, because it doesnt have a large 'bed', won't take off the high points .

I think you'd find that would be the issue.

I love my power plane, it has many uses and is one of the most used tools when working on site, but it's not really correct to think of it as a powered plane, rather a rotary cutting tool that can remove small quantities of material with precision.

 

[FatFreddysCat]

Like Steve I don't really consider a portable power planer as a surfacing tool - more as something which will take 1 to 3mm off an already planed surface or "carve" clearance on the backs of skirtings, etc (when the walls are truly awful). I think the bed on mine would be just too short for anything more than those simple tasks.

on another note, anyone know if it's a good idea to try and sharpen tct saw blades?

Er, no, not really. The firm I go to has several CNC blade grinders which replaced a battery of simpler semi-automatic grinders. All but the biggest joinery works send TCT blades out to be ground these days because without very specialised equipment you just won't get the required degree of accuracy and consistency.