Hand Held Power Planer

[tatcho]

In an ideal world I'd like to purchase a planer thicknesser however, I rent at the moment and don't have a shed that I can use. I have a work room (on teh 1st floor) that I can cover in dust. That being the case I can't realistically buy huge cast iron beasts. That being the case is a hand held power planer a realistic alternative?

All I want to get are nice square edges on my boards for joining and have the ability to reduce the thickness of boards when neccesary. Whenever the place I get my wood from run the boards through their P/T they're never square and I'm not happy with the quality of the finish.

I was looking at the festool EHL 65 E-Plus or a Makita.

Any advice is much appreciated

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Save your money, and go somewhere else for your boards.

 

[Jacob]

In an ideal world I'd like to purchase a planer thicknesser however, I rent at the moment and don't have a shed that I can use. I have a work room (on teh 1st floor) that I can cover in dust. That being the case I can't realistically buy huge cast iron beasts. That being the case is a hand held power planer a realistic alternative? .....

No they are only for rough work. Not much use at all. Can be handy for trimming a door sometimes but a hand held circular saw is much better.
Mind you - if you are desperate you could rig up a hand held planer upside down with a fence and a longer table. I did this years ago for my first planer. Very noisy, makes you go deaf.

 

[bugbear]

In an ideal world I'd like to purchase a planer thicknesser however, I rent at the moment and don't have a shed that I can use. I have a work room (on teh 1st floor) that I can cover in dust. That being the case I can't realistically buy huge cast iron beasts. That being the case is a hand held power planer a realistic alternative?

All I want to get are nice square edges on my boards for joining and have the ability to reduce the thickness of boards when neccesary. Whenever the place I get my wood from run the boards through their P/T they're never square and I'm not happy with the quality of the finish.

I was looking at the festool EHL 65 E-Plus or a Makita.

Any advice is much appreciated

Do you have room/space for a large enough, rigid enough bench for hand planing to be done, or do the same constraints that preclude stationary machines also preclude such a workbench?

BugBear

 

[tatcho]

Same constraints apply unfortunatly.

I use an MFT top for all my cutting needs on top of two saw horse. I haven't really got any more space than that.

I did look at No 7 planes but they're crazy expensive!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I suspect without a decent bench, a no. 7 will be as much use to you as a chocolate kettle.

 

[Jacob]

Same constraints apply unfortunatly.

I use an MFT top for all my cutting needs on top of two saw horse. I haven't really got any more space than that.

I did look at No 7 planes but they're crazy expensive!

A 5 would be a lot more use, and a lot cheaper. 7s are a bit too fashionable - I blame that Alan Peters. :roll:

 

[Teckel]

Get yourself a workmate. It would be the handiest thing in your situation for holding boards and hand planing them.
The electric plane is for rough work and not really what your looking for.
Get yourself a 7..you'll have it for life....

 

[siggy_7]

For jointing the edges of boards, you could always consider a router table. A conventional 24x32" MDF-topped table is much smaller and lighter than a big saw. Portable thickness planers are also small and portable enough for smaller workshop spaces, mount on a workmate or similar when in use and when not you can tuck away somewhere. This would assume you are starting with flat-ish boards though - you can't deal with boards that require a lot of correction in a thickness planer, but a little squaring up you should be fine by feeding through alternate faces each pass.

 

[tatcho]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Looks like I've got some more thinking to do.

That chopping board christmas present looks like it won't be getting done in time :-(

 

[Henning]

I would like to differ a little from the opinion of others here.
I don't have a P/T at the moment, and have used my Festool HL850 plane as a jointer and to some extent a thicknesser on several occasions with good results. Not like the results one gets with a proper jointer or thicknesser, but good enough for my various workings.
It does take some perseverance in setting it up of course, but it works. It's spiral blade makes a rather good surface.
This is, however, the rather expensive bigger brother to the EHL65, and as such almost twice the price in the UK it seems.