My Dw735 Planer Setup And Thoughts
Snipe is a common problem in planers that occurs when wood passes through the planer and is only in contact with one of the two rollers on the way in or out. The nose or tail of the board lifts slightly, and the planer makes a deeper cut over the first or last few inches. Coming in at a whopping 92 pounds, this benchtop planer is the kind of tool that you put on a bench or stand and leave there. Coming in at a whopping 92 pounds, the DeWALT benchtop planer is the kind of tool that you put on a bench or stand and leave there. I have to blow directly into my shop vac, because the airflow from the planer blower pushes the top off of my dust separator. It’s a small price to pay for barely needing to clean up afterwards.
A thickness scale and a separate material removal gauge make it easy to set the 734 for the right depth of cut. When I slide a workpiece to the cutter-head carriage, I use the material removal gauge to set the carriage height for the desired cut. There is also an adjustment wheel marked in 1/64″ increments to move the carriage. The carriage itself has a lock bar that positively locks to the four columns and controls snipe, a deeper cut at the beginning and end of a board, a common planer problem. There is also a turret depth stop to set frequently used thicknesses for uniformity among projects.
Combine all that with a very well built product and you have a tool that I would recommend to anyone. The dust and chip collection work flawlessly on the DW735. Each time I’ve used the DW735 I’ve been able to capture all of the chips and dust. Planing is one of the tasks in the woodshop that creates the most volume of chips and dust. Because of the built-in booster this planer is able to easily capture all the dust regardless of cut depth and board width. The 735 has a couple of extra features the 734 doesn’t have.
Snipe is fairly common with thickness planers, especially benchtop models like the ones in this evaluation. We compared the length of snipe for each planer and material type. For this evaluation we measured the amp draw for each thickness planer under load planing several different types of wood. Again in our opinion this helps compare the strength of the motors during the planing process. Owners of the DW735 wood planer has a 4-star consumer review rating on the DeWalt website. Users cited high marks for its ease of use, effectiveness, value, quality, and durability.
You don’t have to buy additional infeed and outfeed tables for it. The DW735 however doesn’t come with infeed and outfeed planer tables. The Dewalt DW734 is one of the best portable thickness planers you get today. With it, you’ll get an amazing finish on your lumber every time.
If you still have questions about your benchtop planer, refer to your user’s manual or contact the manufacturer. Snipe refers to a line, sometimes very noticeable, left on the front or back of dewalt tools a workpiece where the planer has removed more material than throughout the field of the board. It’s an unsightly element that many benchtop planers leave on workpieces that pass through them.
I ended up doing everything in speed 2 because I thought the finish in speed 2 was perfect. Besides having a two speed gear box as a nice option, this machine uses three knives which is a great feature. Might be one of the reasons that speed two looks so nice. When I was looking for a thickness planer this one was the only one on amazon that didn’t have a some sort of major flaw like its competitors in the same price range. I have never had any issues with changing the knives i found them very easy to set especially compared to my jointer. As of right now I am on my second set of knives after owning the machine for 2 years.