We needed to upgrade the thickness planer in our workshop and chose the DeWalt® DW735. It’s been a great choice because the controls are intuitive and the results are impressive!
We love our DeWalt® DW735 13” (330mm) wood planer. It’s a great machine with good features, excellent serviceability, and comfortable controls.
Not only do we get great results with the machine, but the controls and features on the unit are intuitive and easy to use with a minimum of fuss.
To start with, the power switch is right up front, along with a reset switch. The on/off switch is a red paddle, very easy to see, and easy to shut off with a bump or swat of the hand. Ergonomically, it is right where it should be.
The depth of cut indicator is a cool feature that lets you know if the amount of stock you are getting ready to plane off is safe to do so for the width of the stock. It took me a few minutes to understand the chart and what the indicator is telling you. The basic idea is that you can take off more on a single pass on a narrow board than you can on a wide one. That much is a no-brainer, but the indicator makes the amount of stock removal that is safe and not hard on the machine to a more precise setting.
This planer also sports a final thickness turret. Our unit is very accurate, and as long as the planer is set “higher” than the turret measurement, you can bring the planer head down in steps until your final set thickness is attained. Common thicknesses can be chosen on the turret, and when that setting is reached, the adjustment wheel on the unit stops. Very nice!
Another great feature is the two-speed control that slows down (or speeds up) the feed rollers, hence the feed rate. The lower setting creates 96 cuts per inch (25mm), and higher 179 cuts per inch (25mm). Again, the difference is accomplished via speed changes in the rollers, not in the cutter head rotation rate.
The planer depth of cut indicator/gauge is one of the better ones we’ve seen on compact planers. The indicator is bright red, and the scale has a yellow background with a black rule with sizable numbers. To make use of it, you need to kneel down until your eye level is even with the top edge of the indicator. Otherwise, you won’t get an accurate reading. When your eye isn’t level with the top edge of the indicator, you will get a parallax error.
Because of this, we ultimately decided to install a digital Wixey gauge. You can see our review and installation at:
COMING VERY SOON!
One other thing that we feel is worth mentioning is the height adjustment wheel itself. It’s beefy, better than the typical crank handle we’ve seen, and each rotation equals 1/16” (about 2mm) in raise or lower distance. Raise and lower direction arrows are embossed on the wheel spokes, but it’s better to memorize the rotation directions. My memory cue is thinking about the joystick or yoke in an airplane or flight simulator. If the joystick is pushed forward, the plane descends. If the joystick is pulled back, the plane ascends. So, using the top edge of the wheel, standing on the feed side of the machine, and rolling the top down/away makes the cutter head descend, and rolling the top up/towards you makes the cutter head descend. It works for me.
Access to the interior of the machine is simple with the loosening of the 4 screws on the top using the provided onboard t-wrench. The wrench works both for top access and for changing the blades.
To access the cutter head or the fan-assisted chip ejection system after removing the top, simply remove the brightly colored post-type fasteners and remove the chip ejection shroud. You now can see the cutters and access them. Of course, the machine should ALWAYS be unplugged when servicing the machine.
Parts are readily available, and there are after-market and factory accessories that you may want to check out. We installed the optional in and outfeed tables. These shouldn’t be optional in our opinion. We also bought the DeWalt® rolling stand. It’s well made and we think its a good value.
You can watch our unboxing and assembly of the planer stand at:
COMING SOON!
We have also purchased the Shelix helical planer head and will be installing it and showing the finish differences and sound level contrasts between the stock and helical head.
Bottom line? For the capacity, accuracy, finish, and quality of the machine, we feel our money was well spent.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
After several years, I finally made the investment
in the DeWalt DW735 13-inch planer.
Well, we love it, but let me walk you through
some of the key features and controls on it
so you know how it might work for you in your maker shop.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
We love this new planer.
It is really a nice unit, and Fine Woodworking says
that since this was put out several years ago,
nobody else has even come close for what you get
for the money for a medium-sized shop.
Now, DeWalt makes different kinds of planers,
what's called the breadbox, which has two columns,
but I really like this four-column unit here
where you have four screw jacks here
that support and adjust the head up and down.
It's 13 inches wide.
It's got three cutter blades in it,
and there's just some great features in it.
I'm gonna walk you through that very quickly
so you can make a decision if this type of machine
and the features that it gives you
might really fit into your maker space.
Before we go any further, I wanna let you know
that there's a couple of accessories
that you see fitted to this machine right now.
This is pretty much factory,
except we have this auxiliary in-feed table
and there's an out-feed table in the back,
and if you notice, the out-feed table collides
with the exhaust, the fan-assisted exhaust,
but there really isn't any other place,
you'll see in here, that that could really be,
so I'm not gonna fault the engineers there.
How many times do you have to transport this
with it folded up anyway, or you can hold it
while you're putting it back in storage?
So that's not a big deal to me,
but those are accessories you can buy.
The second thing that is an accessory here
is this DeWalt cart right here.
You can check out in the video in the link above
or in the link in the description below,
the video that we did showing how to assemble this
and a couple of ways you can do it,
where to place the lifter pedal.
There's also all the dimensions of the cart in that video,
so you can see how high this is gonna sit,
where it's gonna put the tables, all of that,
but check that out over there,
but let's go ahead and take a look at this unit right now
as it is in some of my most favorite features, okay?
Well, first of all, let's just start with power.
Power right here is very intuitive.
It's right up front where the operator space would be.
It's very clear.
This is the power button with a reset right here,
and I've got this unplugged, so if it's running
and it's like this, of course, any good tool control,
you can slap or bump against that
and shut it down in case of emergency,
and they've done a nice job.
It's just right up in the front.
It's not gonna get bumped easily, shut off, and all that,
so nicely done on that.
The second thing here is that this can be run
at two different speeds.
Now, what happens is you have to adjust this,
and I'm not gonna do it right now,
because this should only be adjusted
when the machine is running, and as you can see here,
that when it's in position number one,
it's gonna get 179 cuts per inch,
whereas in position two, it's gonna get 96 cuts per inch,
so this is good for dimensioning, position two,
and position one is like primo number one.
You're getting a lot more cuts.
Now, how does the machine accomplish that?
Well, it slows down the feed rate through the knives.
The knives don't change their rotation speed.
The motor speed and all that does not change.
What happens is there's a little gearbox in there
that slows down how fast the stock is going,
encountering the cutter blades,
and of course, the longer the wood dwells
and more knife cuts are occurring,
the smoother the finish,
and so that is a really nice feature here.
If you're doing first dimensioning,
doing dressing of lumber, getting it ready for finish,
you can save a lot on your machine
and do some rough cuts
and reserve those higher finish cuts
for when you're down towards the end of finish
on milling of your stock.
Now, here's another great feature I really like on this,
and this is the depth turret here,
so you can set the machine to cut down to a certain depth,
and I tested this.
I ran some stock at 3 1⁄4, put a caliper on it,
and wouldn't you know it, it nailed it.
I'm talking about a digital caliper
that showed 0.750 inches right at 3 1⁄4 inches.
They did a great job.
Now, to make this work,
this scale or the head has to be set higher than this,
and then it's lowered down to it,
so let me show you how that works.
If I bring this up,
and let's suppose I'm roughly higher than an inch,
and I've got this set at 3 1⁄4,
when I bring this down,
when it encounters 3 1⁄4 inch, it's gonna stop,
and matter of fact, there's a little play there,
but you don't keep cranking it.
You just let it stop right there.
You don't have to lock it
because of the whole thing that's set up.
It's not gonna ride back up.
It's now gonna cut at 3 1⁄4.
As long as you started at a dimension
or a setting on the machine
that is higher than what's on the turret,
you can bring it down to that.
Now, that doesn't mean you set it right out there
and run in, let's say, a 3 1⁄4 inch stock,
a 1 1⁄4 inch thick piece of wood through there
because you're taking off too much,
but this could be your final dimension stock
that you bring it down to.
That fact brings me to the next item on here,
and that is the depth of cut indicator.
Now, if you'll notice right here,
there's a whole list of different dimensions
and how much you're gonna cut off and the width,
so if you're gonna cut off 1⁄8 of an inch at 3 inch,
it'll let you cut up all the way to 1⁄8 inch thick
and so forth.
If you were 6 inches wide,
you can cut up to 3 32nds thick.
If you're 9 inches wide, you can do 1⁄16,
and if you're 13 inches wide,
the most you should be cutting off is a 32nd of an inch.
Now, how this accomplishes it,
if I put my hand in here,
and of course, this is unplugged,
and so I wouldn't recommend you ever do this,
but I wanna show the mechanism.
There is a bar across the bottom right here,
so when the stock first enters and it pushes that bar up,
you can see the indicator rise.
So in this case right now,
it's saying we're cutting 1⁄8 inch off of this,
and that's not recommended for anything wider
than 3 inches.
So if I brought something down in here
and I was trimming it,
you can see your depth of cut,
whether you're cutting off way too much in one pass,
and this little indicator,
which takes a few moments to familiarize yourself with it,
but this becomes really handy,
and of course, you'll develop muscle memory
of how much you should be doing,
how much stock you should be removing at any time,
and what the machine feels like.
Now, let's bring you over here,
and I wanna show you the adjustment crank.
Now, this is a little confusing to me initially
because I'm a muscle memory guy,
and in certain lighting,
this says the arrow going that way is lower,
and the arrow going that way is raised,
but in certain lighting
and trying to get the light to hit right,
I said, I gotta get this memorized,
and the method that I came up with,
standing where you're standing over in this area
operating the machine,
envision either if you've ever used a joystick
in a flight simulator
or any of that kind of thing for a game,
or you have actually flown an aircraft
that uses a stick or a yoke,
you know that when you pull back or pull towards you,
you climb, you rise,
and when you push forward, you dive, you go down.
Well, the same idea here.
If I put this crank over here,
if I pull the crank top towards you,
you're pulling it towards you,
this unit's gonna rise.
Watch it.
See here?
It's climbing.
As I come back towards you over the top, it's rising,
and conversely, if I wanted to go down,
I'm pushing the top away from me,
and down the machine goes,
so this is a really quick way,
and this is a great crank.
It's a superior crank and tactile feel
to the breadbox style that I've used before,
and it's got a kind of a beefy grip on it,
feels good on the hand,
and you can really speed into position.
One thing I'm gonna recommend
is you keep a little bit of lube
on all four of the threaded posts.
Not a lot.
You don't wanna attract a lot of dust.
Maybe something that's a Teflon type of coating.
I wouldn't use a lot of silicone.
You don't want silicone on wood.
It can cause finish problems,
but now we've got that to this point.
One other thing I want you to see,
and then we'll open the top,
and so you can get an understanding
of a couple other things very quickly.
Here you have a very nice visual gauge,
and here you have an indicator,
so it's got some nice big print.
It's pretty easy to get things in line.
As long as you lower your eye down to this level here
and look straight across the top of that indicator bar,
then you're gonna be able to set down to that level,
or better yet, if it's a common dimension size,
you can use the turret on the other side,
but this works out pretty nicely.
However, you can check out the link above
where we upgraded that using Wixie Digital Gauge
so that we didn't have to get down here
and look at the right angle.
We could see digitally exactly where it is,
and that display, when you see it installed,
is set at a nice viewing angle for you as the operator,
so that's about an $80 upgrade,
but boy, really jumps up the utility.
All right, let's look at the next thing.
Let's go ahead and take the top off,
which is accessible with the onboard wrench right here.
Let's go ahead and do that.
All right, before we take the top off,
I wanna call your attention to a few things.
Number one, these are like little skid plates,
so after you've fed stock through,
and let's suppose you have somebody over here,
or you're catching it, and you wanna put the stock back up,
there's a nice rest area you can put right up
on these metal guides,
and that's a nice place to set the stock.
Another thing, there's some nice embossing on this.
This could be real tempting because of this,
you know, looks almost industrial,
like a top of a step stool.
It says right on the corners, embossed.
No step, no step.
This is not something to stand on,
or to let the little ones be around.
You don't wanna do that to your machinery anyway,
and then one other thing it does,
just so when you're first using it,
or you've got an assistant in the shop
that doesn't know quite where it is,
there's a very clear indicator here saying
direction of feed is through this way.
In this way, out that way,
over here where the exhaust port is.
All right, we've gone ahead,
and we've taken out these four readily accessible screws.
What we're gonna do now is just lift off the top,
and as you can see inside,
we've put this to a little bit of use.
We won't go into a lot of detail here,
other than to tell you there's a lot going on
really quickly here,
and we're gonna pull off all three of these red indicators
to get you under the vacuum system.
This is the cyclone fan, or the squirrel cage fan,
excuse me.
This is the motor that runs everything,
but it's also running the fan,
air-assisted and ejecting things out the side
into a four-inch port,
and here's the pickup shroud
that goes over the top of the blade.
Let's go ahead and remove these,
and you can take a look,
and there you can see the inlet to the squirrel cage,
where the fan is picking up all the chips
and ejecting it out of the way.
This is very efficient.
It's not gonna get 100% of it.
You can see there's some residues from an earlier job,
but now you can clearly see the cutter head right here,
and the cutter head is very sharp.
I would need to actually push and do the release,
but it's triangular in shape.
There are three cutters right here.
They're rotating against the direction of the feed.
You always would have that with woodworking.
If the direction of feed matches the rotation
of the tool, it's simply gonna grab it,
shove it through, and jam,
or make a big noise and a lot of damage,
so it's feeding against, shaving off edge,
and then putting it into the ejection system,
taking it out of the way.
When it comes time to replace those knives
or shift them a little bit, if there's a nick,
you can use this tool right here,
which fit into that,
and notice there's a couple pair of rare earth magnets
that allow you to grab onto the blade
and lift the blade out when it's loosened,
so that's a great tool,
and a lot of forethought by the DeWalt engineers.
Nicely done on that,
and finally, at the back of the unit here
is the exhaust port, and notice it is a four-inch.
Now, this is just an inner filter
that is not meant to put a shop-vac hose,
and don't waste your time thinking
that a regular shop-vac will do the job.
It will not.
There is so much air coming out of this
with the fan assist and amount of chips
that can be removed on a 13-inch wide board
that it'll quickly overwhelm a shop-vac,
and you'll end up with a big mess,
so this is really only for four-inch.
If you have a machine of this kind of output
and quality and power,
you need a matching dust collection system.
It doesn't have to be a huge one,
but it does need to be four-inch
with a good collection bag,
because otherwise, you're gonna have this
all over your shop,
so that is the next thing to keep in mind.
Well, we think you'll really like this machine.
There are several sources you can get them.
You can get them from the big-box home improvement stores.
You can also get them from our friends at Rockler,
as well as at Acme Tools,
Woodworker's Source,
and so many others that are available,
and while you're at it, look for packages,
so at different times,
they may upgrade and provide these tables included,
or there's a package that has the stand,
if you can make use of that,
or perhaps a different set of blades or extended blades,
and there's some other cool accessories you can get,
including upgraded blades from people like Infinity Tools,
so I think you'll really like this machine.
We've liked it so far and anticipate we will.
However, I mentioned earlier in this episode
that one of the things we really wanted to take care of
was upgrading or taking a look at this indicator.
This indicator's pretty good, and it's clear,
you can see it, but you have to lower yourself down here
to get an even shot across there
to take care of what's called a parallax error.
Well, check out this video that we created for you
that shows you where we install
the Wixie digital planer readout on this machine right here,
and you'll see how it's installed
and how much we do like it,
and while you're at it, check out this other video
from our library that YouTube thinks is perfect
for your interests, and so do we.
Hey, until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay
really enjoying this planer in my woodworking shop.
