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I bought this planer yesterday after work at the "Blue" home center. I returned it first thing this morning and bought the DW734. With the cutter head locked, there is only 1 to 2 thousandths snipe, easy to sand off. Boy was I wrong. This planer, DW735, doesn't perform to the price tag. This planer has plenty of power and leaves a nice finish, but it snipes very, very badly, way beyond acceptable limits, and that was with a narrow, short piece of wood. I was going to buy the DW734 12.5" planer, but decided this one looked better. It is what I was looking for.
They claim there is a built-in cutter head lock, but it must be a ghost. This thing snipes worse than a Ryobi without a cutter head lock. Save yourself a bunch of money and buy the DW734. Buy the DW734.
Chip ejection is impressive - not having a dust-collection system, it blew chips 6' straight out into an outdoor pile. 300+ board feet later, the knives remain sharp and free of nicks and the surface it produces is glassy smooth. I bought this planer with the intention of turning rough chainsaw-milled slabs into usable stock after recent storms took down a number of large black cherry trees on my property. Snipe was limited, even with just "eyeballed" manual support of 10' lengths. Doesn't bog down at all, even removing 1/16" per pass from 12" cherry stock. The feed mechanism works well, even on the very irregular surface produced by chainsaw milling. Great machine. I'm actually looking forward to the next time storms take down some more trees.
I'm in the middle of a home building project, where I needed to plane 2500 board feet of cherry. I took off between 1/16" and 3/32" on 6- to 12-inch-wide stock. The "rough" speed gave me a good enough finish, at about the same timing as the Makita. The feed rollers on the Makita would stall once in a while, but the problem is much worse on the Dewalt. So I decided to get a Dewalt, thinking that the dual speed would be helpful. It turns out that I didn't even use the dual speed feature. I purchased a Dewalt 735 last weekend. I cleaned chips off the rollers and lubricate the bed, and it would last for about another 200 board feet.
But overall, the machine is good. About every 200 board feet, the machine would have trouble feeding stock--even with a dust collector connected. I'll keep it. Although others have complained about the blades, I believe they are at least as good as those sold by Makita. My seven-year-old Makita burned out about half way through the project. The feed rollers on the Dewalt seem to be constructed of a pretty soft material, and they pick up debris while planing.
The blades lasted for about 1800 board feet (one side) before starting to show wear. The only real problem I ran into was with the feed stalling. Scraping the rollers (and lubricating the bed) fixes the problem, but it recurs too frequently. Hopefully, it lasts as long as the Makita did.
I don't think there's any planer that doesn't require you to sand to a smooth finish. I've had good success with this planer. Yes, it does tend to leave about a 1/16 inch(or less) ridge along a board, but that's no big deal to me as it can and will be sanded away when you finish the board/wood. I'm very satisfied and glad I bought it. (The table and stand made expressly for this planer is a must have too).
Primarily because of the 90 day return policy from Dewalt.Once I got the machine home I was anxious to see (good or bad) just what I had gotten myself into. I have now planned a good bit of short and long stock with amazingly great results. Frankly, I am not used to seeing as many negative reviews, and about things I was concerned with I.E.Snipe, ease of use, and ease of adjustments to be specific.However, in the end I bought the DW735. Before I purchased this machine I read the reviews on it here, and several other sites including Dewalt. From what I read in reviews this alone was going to be a test of engineering skills which I don't have. I tried again and had very little snipe.
My first effort had snipe at both ends.
First it was heavy to get out of the box and unto the table I had for it, but not much different than other planers I considered.
All of my work has been without the infeed/outfeed tables.
There seemed to be about an even split on positive and negative reviews.
I have had occassional snipe when I fed the stock in at an angle.
I read weight is a good thing for a planer Second, I immediatly planed a 2X4 to see how good it worked.
I didnt check any adjustments.
I have only used the finish setting, never used the deminsion setting.I can now truly say this thing is a dream to use right out of the box.By the way, I did order the infeed/outfeed tables from Grizzley (best price) and couldn"t beleive how easy they were to install (did this this morning).
I think they will help keep the stock level with the cutters.I think Dewalt should include them with the original purchase - you pay enough for the 735.
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