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

This Wen planer is my first experience with a feed through planer. Since smooth cedar boards are expensive and I wanted to build a horizontal cedar fence the overall cost would have been prohibitive. Buying rough cut cedar is an order of magnitude less expensive than the smooth variety so I took a flyer on using a planer. Wow, I’m glad I did. Operation is straight forward and after a few test pieces I began planing the 4x4 cedar posts and a quantity of 6”x1”x96” boards. The high speed steel cutter blades lasted for about 10 or so boards (planed both sides), rotated them and did 10 more. Then I replaced the cutters (easy but takes time) with carbide blades and went on my way. I like how the necessary tools are attached right to the machine. Operation of the Wen planer is straight forward and self explanatory so even a newbie can start putting out good results. I also purchased two roller stands and spent some time making sure the boards went through straight, level and true. Result was no snipe which surprised me since many YT videos are how to prevent snipe. Setting up measurement and adjustment is straight forward and little effort. About 1/16” is most I would remove at one time and this worked out well for me. I also purchased the Wen planer stand which gives a solid base for the planer. As the photo shows the results were satisfying with only one pass. What was a collection of rough cut cedar boards and posts became a really attractive set of lumber that looks great. Well worth the money, even for this one project, and I recommend this planer. There will be more projects now that I see how great the results were. Now to get as excited to dig the post holes.

I make small decorative boxes, wine racks, cutting boards etc... I don't plane long boards, or actually use the planer too heavily. But, I do use highly figured, and mostly exotic woods. I had a difficult time planing those woods without tear-out on my previous planer (which was a WEN 12.5 inch two blade planer). I never attempted to take more the 1/64" depth in a pass.With this new Spiral planer I get much smoother cuts on woods like Zircote, Wenge , Leopardwood, Quilted Maple, Black Palm and burls.. This Spiral planer is far and away better for my needs. Two photos are a gift box using leopard wood, and quilted maple. Planer cut smoothly. The extra width is nice too, since I pushed it to the width limit on chevron charcuterie boards. The photo shows my last little project using this planer.

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.

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