Popular Woodworking 2000-11 № 118, страница 66

Choose the right planer

and it will help you through thick and thin.

he price of thickness planers has been dropping like a rock, so now there's no reason your shop shouldn't have one of these puppies. For less than $300, you can buy a universal-motor benchtop planer that's no bigger than a suitcase. These are capable of giving you a sweet finish, though they're not designed to thickness 100 board feet of oak every day.

For that job you need an induction-motor stationary planer with cast-iron beds and heavy-duty feed rollers. You're going to pay $800 or more for a floor model planer like this, but that's hundreds less

than they used to be priced, and the machines are worth every penny. So which machine is for you? A closer look will make things clear.

Benchtop Planers

Ryobi's 10" planer revolutionized home woodworking by making thickness planers affordable. Since the introduction of the AP-10, nearly every manufacturer of power tools has come out with a similar model. As a result, portable planers are cheaper and better than ever before. Benchtop planers are powered by a uni-