Delta 13″ 2 Speed Planer 22-580
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I finally developed a compelling reason why I needed a [tag]bench top planer[tag]. I gained access to some used rough cut mahogany lumber. So, naturally I need a planer to clean up the lumber and dimension it.
I looked at review sites and bench top planer shoot outs. Finally I came down to the DeWalt 13” and the Delta 13” planers. Both planers have many great features. Ultimately it came down to a financial issue. I just could not afford the DeWalt.
Out of the box there is very little post assembly required. Install the handles and check the in feed and out feed tables. Then you are ready to start planning.It uses double edged disposable knives. It comes with a knife wrench and knife holder. The knife holder is a four inch wide strip of plastic that has a flexible magnet. The knife holder works fairly well in lifting the knife out of the cutter head and positioning it back into the cutter head. Included in the box is a piece of Velcro (hook and loop). The manual recommends that you stick it on the under side of the out feed table and stick the knife holder to it. It provides a pretty handy way of storing the knife tool until you need it.
Changing the knives is fairly straight forward process. The first time it took me about 30 minutes. Between reading the instructions and fighting the somewhat over torqued screws. The knives are held down by seven screws. The screws on either end are more of a pain to loosen due to the limited turning room for the knife wrench. You have about a quarter turn worth of space before you have to reset the wrench. In order to change the knives you have to raise the cutter head three to four inches up. This is a pain when you are in the middle of a planning job. I typically am planning seven to ten boards at a time. If I have to stop part way through to change out the knives, it takes a few turns to get the depth set correctly to resume where I left off.The knives are fairly durable, until you hit a nail or enough dirt or other hard contaminates on the surface of the lumber. I made the mistake of not checking one of my boards for nails and planed a nail. I realized my mistake after I saw something shiny on the board. Tool late the planer knife has been damaged. The good thing was this damage was localized to about 1” from the right hand side. I used the rest of the blade until it as dull and needed to be changed.
The planer does not come with a dust chute, it can be purchased separately. I highly recommend that you do purchase one! The shavings exhaust port blows the shavings directly on to the out feed table. The dust chute dumps the shavings off to either the left or right hand side.
I also recommend that you have a two stage dust collector to pick up the shavings as the planer will product a large volume of them.The wood comes out very smooth and requires very little to no sanding.How much can it handle in a single pass? Well it depends on the type of wood you are planning. Soft woods you can go up to 1/8 of an inch per pass. On hard woods I typically take off 1/32 per pass, especially if you are planning a 13” wide hard wood board.
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