Planers - electric hand held.

[UncleSteve]

I've had a few cheapo electric planers over the past 30+ years, all have done the job I bought them for, and treated them as disposal. However I'm thinking of getting something better.

My biggest issue with the cheapo planers is that they have rotors similar to the image below

The replacement blades are precision ground, however the mounting assembly is all movable, but no vernier screw type adjustment so are a right pain to set up correctly/parallel to the beds of the plane. Is there any hand held planers out there that don't cost a fortune that has a better/easier blade adjustment than the cheapo one described please?

Thanks in advance for any comments/help

 

[carlb40]

I use the BOSCH GHO26-82 and have never had to set the blade once it has been reversed/ renewed. One of the main reasons i like the bosch woodrazor system and it's single blade.

 

[MMUK]

All the cheap planers I or my dad have had all used normal 82mm blades. Brands such as Power (Kitchen) Devil, Silverline, Lamborghini. Same blades as the Bosch and Makita.

 

[memzey]

I recently bought a relatively cheapie Erbauer planer from Screwfix. I was extremely suspicious at first as I've had bad experiences with Erbauer stuff in the past (sounds German but made in PRoC I will say no more) however this bit of kit is awesome. I'd highly recommend it at the price (£60 ish if I remember rightly). In fact I'd go as far to say its better than some more expensive planers I've used by the big boys. Definitely a bargain and money well spent.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Cheap planers now tend to have a wedge retaining the knife clamp in the block. My Freud does and it's similar to a dozen more. It's rubbish and I've really struggled to correct big alignment problems from manufacture. It has grub screw height adjustment, BUT altering the blade clamp tends also to move the grub screws!

The block cutout is similar to my floor standing P/T - a wedge/asymmetric dovetail and bolts that push into the sides of the groove. I'm fairly sure many of the cheaper ones are the same or very similar - very small disposable blades that have two ground edges and a central retaining groove.

The big difficulty is that, if you wobble, so does the planed edge, and depth of cut adjustment is at best approximate. I don't think you can get round either of those easily.

Could you use a small benchtop planer instead?

Festool make several though, and they can't be rubbish!

 

[blackrodd]

There are loads of things I'd rather be doing than setting these cutters, So i welcome the two sided, tct reversible blade, excellent idea and time well saved!
Regards Rodders

 

[UncleSteve]

I do have a stand alone planer/thicknesser, but a hand held jobbie has its applications. Unfortunately there's not a one size fits all type tool

I've gone and looked at the planes mentioned above and found pdf instruction manuals, all seem to have a better blade alignment system than the design in my image above.

 

[MMUK]

There are loads of things I'd rather be doing than setting these cutters, So i welcome the two sided, tct reversible blade, excellent idea and time well saved!
Regards Rodders

Those are the ones I meant