Customer Reviews

DEWALT DW735 13-Inch, Two Speed Thickness Planer

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

This is the first planer I have ever owned or used so I don't have anything for comparison but I like it so far. Out of the box you attach the hand crank and the dust attachment and you are ready to go. There are two dust attachments one to attach a 4" hose and another (diffuser maybe?) for no hose attachment. The directions are pretty well written and easy to follow. All the adjustments and work on the unit can be done with the one included tool that drops into a holder on the top. All the controls work great and are easy to operate.

First let me say again this is the first time I have ever used a planer so a lot (okay, probably all :) of the snipe I got was user error. The more boards I put through the less snipe I got. It took a little playing around with and reading to learn the correct technique for moving stock through so I did get snipe on the first bunch of passes on stock, more frequently on the end of the boards then on the front. Most of what I put through was between 3 and 6 inches wide and 2-5 feet long. I did put a couple wider ones in just to see how it handled it. On a 14in long 11in wide hard maple glue up I took off 1/16th per pass and got no snipe or tearout. Then I put through a 10in wide 4ft long oak board and did get snipe on the end but not the start. I still think it's technique because it didn't do it on every pass and when taking off 1/32 I didn't get it at all. The folding tables aren't out yet, but they will probably help even more. I'm pretty convinced once I get the proper technique down I won't get snipe anymore. I'm getting more and more snipe free boards.

I can't say anything bad about the surfaces. I have had zero tearout and ultra smooth surfaces on everything I have put in no matter what I do. The most I have taken off is an 1/8in while only taking 1/32in on the longer boards. Most of the time I had it set to 1/16in. Probably 50% at 1/16, 30% at 1/8, and 20% at 1/32. I put through a pretty good mix of pine, red oak, hard maple, and ash with most of it being red oak.

The crank turns easily and each turn is 1/16in. The depth stop is easy to set and is for 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1, and 1 1/4. The removal scale is pretty nice as well, you put the end of the board just under the edge and turn the crank. A little pointer moves on a scale to tell you how much will be taken off. It has a little chart built in showing the max that can taken off based on board width, which is nice for me because I didn't know. The thickness scale is pretty big, easy to read, and easy to set. I only ran it with my dust collector hooked up to the 4" port, but it grabbed everything. After running all the wood through, probably about 4 hours total use, there where 3 little wood chips beside the bed and that's all - the dust collector had the rest. The thing I don't like about it is the dust attachment is right in the center above the outfeed so unless you angle the hose away to the side with an elbow or suspend it somehow it gets in the way of the stock coming out. But so far that is my only gripe. This thing is really loud but I expected that, it's the loudest tool I have. All the scales and settings where dead on right out of the box. I do wish the folding tables came bundled. Overall I'm one happy camper.

Okay, I finally got the folding tables. They are very easy to assemble and align. Each corner of each table can be adjusted for height. The attachment points are spring loaded so they are also easy to take off and put back on. They do help in supporting the work and seem very solid. The front table folds up out of the way and stays there. The rear table however is another story. Because the main table and the back of the moter/blade assembly are pretty much even and the pin to hold the table is set back the rear table will never fold up and stay. When the depth of cut is set around an inch and the cord is wrapped around the cord holder the rear table won't flip up more then around 20 degrees. In my opinion this is a major design flaw, the main table needs to stick out at the rear by at least an inch or two to allow the table to fold up.

Being a part-time tool designer for woodturning, and a former machinist, I appreciate good tools & designs. I've used the 735 with a friend making various woodworking projects. The DeWalt 735 looked like a great design, with innovative vacuum-assist using the planer knives for an impeller-like suction. But shortly into the project, the knives quickly showed wear and the planer made much more noise than it did when the blades were untouched by the softwood we were planing. I've done a lot of planing, and have owned other brands of machines & knew there were serious problems with these blades. When I inspected the blades, I immediately noticed they were very thin with too much backrake in the edge, which probably caused premature breakage due to unsupported steel at the cutting edge. There is the probability of setting up vibrations in the thin metal further causing additional stresses on the steel, and may be a reason the machine is much louder than other brands of planers (try taking a razor blade and hack away at hardwood and see what happens.). Shortly after that, the sproket in the drive system broke. Another closer inspection revealed a very weak, low density casting with poor mechanical design & strength, especially where the keyway was broached into the already weak metal. A second replacement sproket broke in the same place, relative to the first one, further indicating a design flaw, and another set of knives went dull prematurely ( I was hoping that the first set of knives had a metallurgical flaw, were embrittled, or some other fluke). I measured the depth of cut on the 6" wide softwood board, and it was only .050" ---less than 1/16"!! There is no easy way to re-machine the knife holder to accept better knives, say from a Makita or other brand of machine. Maybe DeWalt subbed part of this machine out to a company named "Rejects "R" Us" but this machine is past it's warranty and will be sold "as is" which is an "as is" piece of junk. But if you want a noisy dust collector booster, this machine will work well, just don't plane anything harder than fresh marshmallows on it. It's truly sad that with all the other great features on this machine, and DeWalt's great reputation with the predecessor to the 735, a lack of attention to the two most important functions of the machine (cutting wood, and feeding the wood through the planer) were neglected. The local customer service was poor, at best. Get this planer a better knife design, forged steel sproket, acoustic damping (it's really loud) and this DeWalt will be as good as the Hitachi or Makita.

I have owned my DW735 for about a year now and I am quite disapointed. I moved up from an old 12 inch planner which had awful snipe and did a poor job. The Dewalt is a great improvement over this. It produces almost no snipe, and provides a smooth finish as long as the blades are sharp. I really like the depth stop, which assures perfectly even thickness of each board. The removel gage is also a very helpful feature.

Now for the bad part(s). First, this thing is a screaming demon. It is so noisy that even hearing protection is not enough. I mentioned sharp blades above. They do not stay sharp long, and then start to produce small ridges in the work. I am lucky to get a couple of hundred feet without degradation. Go much further and you start to get tear out. These blades are to expensive to replace every few hundred feet. Now for the worst part. This machine will not feed properly. Forget anything over six inches wide, it simply won't feed. The rollers slip on the work causing black marks, and the cutters burn. I called Dewalt about the problem and was told they had never heard of the problem. They also told me to clean the rollers and polish the table. I did this but it didn't help the problem. By the way, this happens while trying to take off only 1/64 or 1/32. Forget anything more aggressive.

If you have very light work, or only work in softwoods, this machine should be a good choice. However, it does not seem capable of handling any heavy work in hardwoods, and nothing stops the noise.

My only two complaints are 1) the knives don't seem to last very long and replacements are farily expensive for how long they last. I ran about25 feed of soft maple through the planer and it looked great, but then I started seeing little ridges on the boards. I took the blades out and looked at them to see if they are chipped, but they looked fine. Reinstalled them and tried again, same results. I turned the blades over (they are two sided which is nice) and every thing looked great again. This time I was very careful to make sure there wasn't anything on the wood that could cause a problem, but again after 20-30 feet fo board, the little ridges started showing up again. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to afford new blades every 30 feet of boards. 2) The output chute is slightly undersized for the 2 1/2 inch hose on my shop vac. The manual doesn't recommend using a shop vac because it fills up so fast, but that's all I have and I'd rather empty it more often than have chips all over the floor. I ended up breaking one of my hoses and jaming it into the output chute and it worked fine, but it would have been better if it had just fit right from the beginning. Not too big of a deal because I don't use the planer that much and I'm planning to upgrade to a dust collection system soon.

By the way, changing the blades is as simple as it could be. Everything is accessable and the supplied tool even has a magnet in the handle to pick up the blade so you don't get cut. Nice touch.

I purchased my DW735 as a quicky (read: impulsive) replacement for a Jet JWP12 that died in the middle of a job. (The poly belt broke.) Uncharacteristically, I didn't research the tool before buying. I should have. Although the planer is satisfactory, the knives are not. I planed about 80 lineal feet (yes, JUST 80 feet!) of antique white oak 1x6s before suddenly finding the blades too dull for the feed rollers to overcome the resistance. This occurred suddenly...within the span of three boards! Going along just fine in the "dimensioning" mode when the feed became slower and slower until finally, the boards quit feeding. The dull knives offered too much resistance. I cleaned the feed rollers with acetone, thinking there was contamination causing them to lose friction. This helped for one board, then the feeding stopped again. These boards were salvaged church kneelers from 1900. I had rough planed them of old varnish and grit to clean wood with a DW675 power hand planer and then ran them through the DW735 to true and thickness to 3/4". Surprised and annoyed, I flipped the knives and continued with the project. I surfaced another 50 linear feet without incident. A few days later, I start another job that required surface planing some 2x10 Select structural Doug fir. These were new clean planks. I managed to surface two sides of one plank before the feed stopped again. Cleaning the rollers had no effect. The blades were SHOT! I tried just a very shallow pass (the material removal gauge didn't even register that material would be removed, but failed halfway through when the planer kicked out a 20 amp dedicated breaker. Cranked up the planer head and removed the plank. The resultant stopped cut was barely perceptible, perhaps less than 1/64th of an inch. Hardly a heavy cut! I've seen some snipe that was greater. So, now I've got two planers and both down! I've ordered replacement knives, but what a PITA. The knives on the Jet were three years since replacement with a huge amount of varied lumber under their belt and although not sharp, still managed to bull through some 2x10s without complaint. I've found some aftermarket knives for the DW735 online at Infinity Cutting [...]. Apparently not laminated or reversible, but anything is better than the stock knives!
Another annoying trait for this machine: In spite of having a dedicated twenty amp breaker, it kicks out the breaker regularly when first turning the planer on. I've swapped breakers and circuits without avail, and No, I'm not trying to run it on an extension cord!
Update: I called Dewalt and complained about the knives and their short life. Dewalt sent me a set of new knives free of charge. Also, Be VERY careful using any solvent to clean the feed rollers and table. The universal motor has brushes and brushes spark in operation. Wait for awhile after wiping down the rollers with solvent to allow the chemical vapors to dissipate before turning the machine on!

Bought my DW735 new. About 45 minutes after I started planing (cyress, very soft) raised lines appeared on the wood. I swapped the blades and started planing again, but the knives wore out again in roughly 30 minutes (not 30 minutes of planing, but simply 30 minutes running!). I hoped I simply had a faulty set of knives, and that newer replacements would be made of good steel instead of cast zinc or crusty bread or whatever. Within 5 more minutes, >ponk< a sprocket (also made of clay or cardboard?) broke.

I took it for repair to a DeWalt service center and asked why the knives wore out so quickly. The clerk rudely observed "you're not supposed to plane nails," summing up his/their attitude and helpfulness. I had carefully prepped the wood before planing, and only went 1/4 turn of the handle per pass, no more than 1/32". Nor did anything obvious cause binding or stress on the drive sprockets.

They fixed it (it was really broken; not just an out-of-index feed speed lever as suggested on DeWalt's website). I installed new knives, and started planing some redwood. At 10 minutes the raised lines were back, at 30 minutes >ptunk< the sprocket broke again (note: 100 lbs is actually pretty portable when you're that angry). I had to finish that project using a friend's nice older portable Hitachi- it worked great.

To be fair, this planer has some good points. BEFORE the sprockets break, and IF the knives are brand new, the finish is just like they say, perfect, silky and smooth. There's not much snipe, either. Changing the worthless and expensive (that's irony) knives is by necessity easy and painless. Rated one star because I can't select zero stars.

I've had a DW735 for about 3 months now and have run about 500BF through it (Lacewood, Poplar, Cherry, etc). I do not have the extension tables. Unlike others, the planer has run flawlessly for me. I get no snipe and the feed mechanism works fine. Others have commented that the blades do not stay sharp long, and then start to produce small ridges in the work. I find that when the ridges form, I wipe the blades down with mineral spirits which removes any gum and/or other debris, and then the blades cut nice an smoothly. I have not turned the original blades over yet. So...I believe that the blades stay sharp just fine and just a little maintenance can produce fine cuts.

Update: I finally flipped the blades. Since the blades have a slot in them for mounting, you can stagger them, which I did. I set 2 blades to the right and 1 to the left. Then when a notch/divot forms, I simply slide a second blade to the left and now it will cut clean. I'll do this until the are all to the left and then slide the first to the right. This should significantly extend the life of the blades.

This planer is exceptional. The cut quality, thanks to 179 cuts/inch, is in a league of it's own. There aren't too many machines at any price that produce cuts this clean. I had a $5,000 jointer/planer that produced tearout on the same wood that this planer surfaces perfectly, due mostly to the lower 50 cuts/inch of my previous machine.

In a lot of ways, this portable is more refined than the industrial machines. The attention to detail is impressive for a machine of this price. It is not as heavy duty, and you can't take monster thick passes with it, but I'm not looking for production-shop efficiency- cut quality is where it's at for me. Some of the things that I like about it:

-10,000 RPM + 3-knife cutterhead + 2-speed feed rate = supurb cut quality
-Automatic snipe-eliminating mechanism that actually works (you don't have to manually lock it down like you do with all other portables)
-13" capacity is enough to match my 12" jointer, at a very reasonable price in the grand scheme of things
-The depth-of-cut gage, paired with the wood thickness gage, let you know exactly how big of a bite you are taking and how thick the wood will be
-Easy to get to the knives for changing
-Robust packaging (contrary to what I've read in earlier reviews- maybe they've improved it)
-High quality engineering and ergonomics, in general

I would like to comment on the knife-life issue that has been discussed on this and other portable planers. When a line is seen on the wood, indicating the knives are knicked, you don't have to replace them. All you have to do is shift 1 of the 3 knives a little bit so that the knicks in the blade no longer overlap. Then they'll perform as good as new. You can do this many times before you need to replace or rotate knives, because these knives are slotted and allow this position adjustment for this very purpose. The fact that it has 3 knives means they'll probably last longer than 2, since you can shift 'em around to prevent overlapping knicks from striping your work. All planers have this same issue, and it's unlikely that the DeWalt's knives are sub-par in this respect.

This is an outstanding machine, I highly recommend it.

I too had one of the sprockets sheer apart after a single day of use; and not even heavy use! I called DeWalt and they informed me that "some of the units had undersized bearings that caused the feed roller sprocket to break." They suggested I return it to the distributor and exchange it for a new unit since the newer production run corrected this problem with larger bearings. This isn't really a serious setback for me (except for the delay in playing with my toy) since I didn't buy it online, the dealer stood behind the product and it was less than 30 days old (DeWalt unconditional 30 day warranty). That said, however, I can imagine how much of a pain in the neck it is(not to mention costly) to ship the 90 pound defect back to Amazon! I'm disappointed that DeWalt (particularly on their highest end planer)didn't post some sort of recall if they knew the problem was systemic and offer to pay for the shipping back if you bought it online. In addition, DeWalt wouldn't tell me how to ascertain that the exchanged for planer had the larger bearing and was free from the defect. Perhaps the Serial Number would tell me? I asked. DeWalt wouldn't help. In addition, the dealer didn't know about the defect or which ones were "old" or "new", so he couldn't head off possible problems. I've decide to wait until the dealer receives a new shipment to exchange mine...which he says will be in another week. Anyway, the machine was terrific while it worked with virtually no snipe and a glass finish. We'll see if the "new" one I get holds up.

Update:

Well, I got a replacement...the dealer couldn't have been more accommodating. The new machine works perfectly and the cut quality is excellent. I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because: 1. I had to go through the hassle of exchanging the defective product 2. It is so LOUD that it requires wearing Stihl ear muffs made for a chain saw when operating and 3. the placement of the dust collection port directly above the stock outfeed requires you to support the dust collection hose or risk having it interfere with the stock as it exits the planer.

By the way, I did not purchase the optional tables and don't feel they're necessary, a little practice feeding the stock straight in and there's no problem with snipe. Lastly, I bought the mobile stand...excellent, very well made, and a great value.

After my Craftsman Planer/Molder ruined an expensive piece of Birdseye maple, I was determined to replace it. I had paid over $600 for this planer and it had ruined several pieces of lumber, usually the expensive boards. I started reading the reviews, and decided that this was the one I wanted. I ordered it here on Amazon, and it arrived ahead of the projected delivery date. I used it to clean up the mess that the Craftsman Planer/Molder made on the Birdseye Maple as well as some curly Maple. I have been doing woodworking for more than 30 years, and I will say that this is the best planer I have ever used, including the larger 20" floor model. I thought that the price was a little high, but in this case, you get your money's worth. It lives up to the reviews, and if any tool deserves 5 stars, this is the one.