DEWALTBenchtop Planer, 15-Amp, 12-1/2-Inch, 3-Knife Cutter, 20,000 RPM, Corded (DW734)

First, a little praise for Amazon. $25.00 discount, free shipping, and free set of spare knives (didn't even know these were included.), resulted in a delivered price of [...]. That's the best deal in town, especially when you consider the free [...] knives.Now, the planer. It's heavy. Really heavy. But that's a good thing. It took only 10 minutes to set up, read the manual, and make my first sawdust. Initial results were excellent. Glass-smooth surfaces on White Oak, Poplar, and Red Oak. Minimum snipe limited to ends of board. No snipe detected elsewhere.Nice fit & finish. Decent manual. Good ergonomics. Plenty powerful.So far, highly recommended. I'll update after a few hundred board feet.UPDATE - 2 Years LaterI'm still very pleased. I've put in excess of 1000 bf through the planer now. It hasn't missed a beat. Unbelieveably, I'm still on my first set of knives. They are a little nicked now due to some hard maple I put through it a few weeks ago, but I'm not yet sufficiently motivated to change them. This machine has served me well, and shows no signs of slowing down. It still ranks 5 stars.UPDATE - 1 Week since Last UpdateI broke down and turned the knives over. I cut myself in the process. Clumsy! A few cuts after freshening the knives made it obvious that I should have done this some time ago. The planer performs like new. Still 5 stars.Update - At 4 YearsStill 5 stars. I turn or replace the knives every 6 months or so. The knives don't like Hard Maple, but all other species do fine (including Walnut & Oak). The results delivered by this planer are excellent.Update - At 6 YearsStill going strong. Just added a Wixey digital readout that I got from Amazon. Still 5 stars.Update - At 12 YearsStill going strong. Feed rollers started to slip, so I cleaned them with a stiff brush and alcohol. Worked like a champ. Back to 100% function. Obviously a great planer.Update - At 15 YearsSeriously. 15 years. My kid is now grown and off to college. The planer still delivers. I planed some Walnut a couple days ago. Fantastic results. Clearly, I got my money worth. Would buy another in a minute should the need arise.Update - At 19 YearsThe planer and I have grown old together. It functions far better than I do. The only problem I’ve had is a broken tab on the dust collection fitting. That’s trivial, considering all the use this machine has had. A great product.

Purchased this after reading many reviews on various sites. Works great. After planing the wood in very smooth and ready for final sanding. The dust collection feature was very helpful, not near the mess as with my old planner. I’d recommend it.

Great and a good value

This is a great product. The only issue I can come up with is the dust collection. You have to take the attachment off in order to be able to close the planer, also, periodically you need to check the dust collection are and vacuum the extra shavings. Other than this issue I 100% approve this product. DEWALT makes good quality products and I have most of the main products. If you follow this item then you can buy it when it goes down on price, usually sales price last a day or so, so buy it when it goes to sale.

I have been using this planer for about 3 months, and am still happy with it. A couple things could be better, but for the most part it has been one of those tools that you can rely on to do what it is supposed to.=== The Good Stuff ===* My planer is permanently mounted to a work table with four mounting bolts. These are not included-but they would never guess the right length anyway, so not a big deal. The planer is heavy, the instructions say 80 LBS, but it seemed lighter than that, so you may need a second person to help lift it into place.* Within an hour of opening the box (and most of that time was spent reading the manual thoroughly), I was planing cedar. The tables seemed perfectly adjusted out of the box, and I got very smooth finishes with no snipe at all. Operation is relatively simple and mostly intuitive.* Most of my planing is oak-typically resurfacing oak that I have reclaimed from old furniture or cabinets (much cheaper to buy oak at a thrift store than a lumberyard). It does an excellent job on oak, although you will occasionally get some slight snipe at the ends of previously finished lumber.* I do not have a dust collection system, but my large shop vac attached to the rear port does a very nice job on dust and shavings. I do get a little dust, but very minimal amounts, and most of that is probably blow-by from the hose connectors. If I wasn't so lazy, a more permanent "clamped" connection would work better. I do use a respirator when planing old pre-finished wood- there is no telling what is in the finishes.* After planing about 1200 lf of oak, mostly 5-7" wide, the blades started showing signs of dullness. Cuts were still clean, just not as smooth as they used to be. Swapping the knives turned out to be about a 20 minute project the first time, although I am sure it will be about half that next time. (Careful, real easy to cut yourself).I also added a "lap counter" to the side of the table- the kind track coaches use to count laps. They are about $5, and I use them to track how much wood goes across the planer. One click = 10'. Not 100% accurate, but good for monitoring blade use.* The small gauge to estimate the amount of material to be removed works great! I have found with planing oak that two or three very small passes (1/32 or so) works about the best, although you can sneak by with a 1/16 then a 1/32 without much difference.* I seldom plane anything longer than 8', and so far have not felt the need to purchase or build any extension feed tables.=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===* The height gauge is a bit inexact for my needs. I added a Wixey 850 to the planer, and love it. This should have been a part of the planer to start with.* There is a "hard stop" for common thicknesses. I use the 3/4" one quite a bit, but I find it to be a little unrepeatable (+/- 0.08 or so.. Not a major deal, but occasionally enough to be annoying.. The problem is that while the stop is fixed, you have to rely on "feel" to determine how tight to crank down on the head adjustment against the stop. The Wixey has been repeatable to 0.02 or so.* I wish the in and outfeed trays would fold up. They stick out over the front and rear of my work bench, and I hate having tools get bumped.* The on/off switch is easy to use, provided you are standing in the front of the unit. However at about the half-way point in any planing, you are now standing at the back of the unit, and there is no way to get to the switch quickly in an emergency. As with all my tools, I added "panic buttons to the tables, and in this case, added on front and rear.=== Summary ===While there are some parts of this tool that I wasn't totally thrilled with, they were relatively easy to correct, and the planer is now a trusted and often-used part of my shop. So far it has been used for roughly 75% red oak, 15% cedar and 10% poplar, and has performed well on all of these. I have trued-up some cupped wood without much trouble, although the cups were relatively slight-maybe 1/8 or so.