WEN Thickness Planer, Two Speed, 13-Inch Spiral Blade, Benchtop (PL1337)

I'm a retired professional with a Felder 741 combination slider, planer and shaper. If you know Felder, then I don't have to tell you they are one of the industry standards for accuracy. However, I'm sick of building a piece of fine furniture, only to discover that one last piece is too thick, or whatever. That means raising the jointer bed, cranking up the planer head, and in the process losing whatever was setup on the saw.Also, I've wanted a spiral cutter for the planer, but $1,000+ makes no sense when the Felder knives already do a superb job, and of course I would still have the changeover problem. I'v thought about a bench top planer, but that's also around a grand, so not happening.Anyway, I saw some reviews on the Wen 13" with a segmented cutter head. Odd looking cutter head, and the inserts are HSS instead of carbide, but at $400 for the one speed I decided to take a risk. I just unpacked and plugged in this morning. Connected to my 3hp Onida Gorilla using a 4" hose. I then ran a test using 1.5" air dried red oak.Results were a surprise, to say the least. Beautiful finish on both sides, even at the one speed, which is quite fast. No sign of of any cutters out of alignment. Almost no snipe - I did not adjust the tables. Dust collector gets most, but not all, chips. ( I also tried connecting a shop vac which was not that great, so I'd recommend a dust collector).Segmented cutter heads are supposed to be quiet, but brush motor noise makes it about as loud as a knife machine, at least in my opinion. Hearing muffs required. This is not a complaint. For $400 you can't have everything.Bottom line, I'm glad I bought this thing. Once the four sided cutters are dull I might upgrade to carbide, but we'll see. Sometimes HHS produces a better finish than carbide, so I might just buy another set of those, depending on how long the originals last. The question now is longevity. Machine seems solid and weighs 80 pounds, so for my needs it will probably be OK. We will see.Bottom line, doe a great job for less than half the price of a name brand.The machine turned out to be a pleasant surprise, producing an excellent finish.

I'm a finish carpnter and woodworker living in Los Angeles Ca, since 1968. Been using the Dewalt 735 series planers for a very long time, thouht I'd switch it up and give this one a shot. Only used it about a dozen times so far on walnut, white oak and vertical grain douglas fir. And am very pleased with the results. It's quieter, lighter, cheaper and easier to operate than the 735. Might also have better chip collection. if these results continue it will pretty much be a great deal. So, very impressed with the performance of this tool to date. BTW chipped blades are easier and cheaper to fix than with the 735.

In my job experiences there were many opportunities to run commercial planers and they were work horses and so is this one! It is smaller but with the spiral cutter head it will plane wood and hardly slow down! There was some Ipe wood left over from another job this wood is Brazil hardwood and so hard you can't drive a nail in it! At taking off 1/32 at a time it never slowed down and came out smooth as glass! it had a little snipe until the infeed and outfeed tables were adjusted up a taste and now no snipe! The tricks to keeping a great planer is be patient and take real small bites, clean dirty boards with a wire brush,vacuum it out after each use and do maintenance according to the manual and it will last a long time!The evac system works great with a shop vac also! There was a lot of shopping done before this one was chosen and turns out you get a lot for the money! Am very happy ! Go ahead pull the trigger on it you want be sorry!

I'm a weekend woodworker/hobbiest for no reason other than to change gears from my long hours behind a keyboard or in data and server rooms so my experience is "intermediate" but goes back to 1997. I have a woodshop full of tools and know my way around power and hand tools pretty well. Despite my years of woodworking, I had only electric and manual hand planers as I enjoy the manual process most but recently fell in love with trees. As such, I began harvesting trees about my wooded 10 acres so had to upgrade many tools. Upon months of research and two models I returned to Lowes, I discovered the following:When running a slab of Hickory through a 2 and 3-blade Planer, expect lots of snipe and a poor surface.A single hidden fence nail will destroy your blades and you'll have to replace all of them.Running cherry wood through, fares better but still rougher than I'd like on 2 and 3 blades.2 and 3 blade Planers are cheaper for a reason. Upon returning both, I fixed my eyes upon a Spiral Bladed Planer. Why? Better surface obviously, but more important, a spiral blade is made up of many little square blades in a corkscrew configuration on a cylinder. A dulled blade is simply rotated 1/4 and it's good as new. Plus, you can do that 3 more times as each surface is sharp. -You don't destroy and replace the entire spiral. I intended to buy Dewalt but at 600+ I decided to try WEN's version instead. I have other WEN products in my shop and have never been disappointed so I took a shot. (See Pics) I chainsaw-slabbed a 24" piece of hickory with some wet-ish heartwood and ran it through the planer about 10 times on each side. Pignut Hickory has a Janka hardness of 2,140 lbf when compared to White Oak (1,350 lbf), Black Walnut (1,010 lbf) or standard Douglas Fir pine you'd get at Lowes (620 lbf). I found that planing off more than an 1/32 per pass was pretty taxing on the machine for Hickory but the Black Walnut planing (pic 4) handled 1/32 easily. Pine could pass 1/16 or deeper with little issue. The front gauge is my favorite feature as I only need to lower the blade mill onto the wood to see how deep I'm going. The gauge does go up to 1/8 but what kinda Psychopath planes 1/8th per pass? It's a planer, not a table saw. Additionally, remember that the softer the wood, the higher the probability of snipe so keep your depth low to save those ends. Still, snipe was far more reasonable than the 2 and 3 blade systems I tried previously.Let's talk support now. Mine came with a cracked dust collector. A very small and minor crack on this flimsy plastic piece but no surprise there. It still worked even with the crack but I'm not dropping 400+ on something that's got even the slightest blemish on it so I emailed WEN support at the email on the Owners Manual. Don't bother, they don't respond to emails. I called them the next day and spoke with a US Based Support Rep. He seemed annoyed to help but actually did his job and sent me a new dust collector. Friendly? No. Supported. Yes. This cost the product a star as I hate calling and waiting on hold despite the short wait time. Don't give an email if you don't respond to them, is all I'm saying. Overall, the Machine is a 5-star purchase for performance, ease of use and value. I don't regret saving 200+ on buying this WEN instead of Dewalt.