Benchtop Thickness Planers

If you are someone who enjoys woodworking, then you probably know the importance of having a good thickness planer. A thickness planer is a tool that is used to plane boards to a specific thickness, making them easier to work with and ensuring that they are uniform in thickness. Thickness Planers can also be used to mill rough lumber to get perfectly flat and straight sides. This process usually involves a jointer to achieve the initial flat side and then moving to the planer to make the other side flat and parallel; but with the aid of a planer sled it is possible to achieve the full milling process using only a thickness planer.

When it comes to thickness planers, there are a lot of options to choose from. You can find planers in different sizes, with different features and at different price points. This can make it difficult to determine which one is the best fit for you. In this article, we’ll compare some of the top thickness planers on the market and highlight the differences between them.

One of the most critical factors to consider when comparing thickness planers is their capacity. Some planers can handle wider and thicker boards than others, so it’s essential to consider the size of the boards you’ll be working with.

Another key factor is the type of blade system they use. The blades of a planer are mounted to a rotating drum called a cutterhead. The cutterhead style should be considered as the position and number of blades can affect the operation of your machine and the quality of your cuts. Benchtop thickness planers most often come in 3 different cutterhead styles: Straight, Spiral, and Helical.

Straight knife cutterheads are the traditional style featuring usually 2 or more blades. These blades are oriented parallel to the cutterhead and spaced evenly around it. This style of cutterhead is usually the most cost effective solution and the easiest to maintain, but some of the disadvantages compared to the other options are larger chips, higher power consumption, and sometimes rougher finishes (especially with knots or harder woods).

Spiral cutterhead styles are the next step up from straight knife styles. Instead of just a few larger knives that span the full width of the cutterhead, spiral style blades have multiple cutting inserts mounted across the cutterhead. These inserts are set in rows with the blade edge parallel to the cutterhead, similar to straight knives, but there are several inserts per row. Each row then has the inserts offset from the previous row. All the rows together achieve full cut coverage over the board. Some advantages to spiral style cutterheads are smoother finishes, reduction of chip-out, and when a blade is chipped or marred you only need to replace (or rotate) that individual insert, not the whole row of blades.

The final style cutterhead we will mention is the helical style. This cutterhead is similar to the spiral style in that the cutterhead is composed of multiple small blade inserts as opposed to the full-width blades of a straight style cutterhead. The big difference between spiral and helical is how these inserts are oriented. In a helical style cutterhead the inserts are mounted at a slight angle to the path of the workpiece. This produces a shearing style cut which can arguably result in a smoother finish. Some other advantages of a helical style cutterhead involve quieter operation, better blade longevity, and less power consumption.

Some final factors to consider when purchasing a thickness planer are the motor’s power and the number of speed settings. A more powerful motor will be able to handle tougher materials and often make smoother cuts. The number of speed settings on a planer can allow you to adjust the speed of the planer for different uses. For instance, a slower speed would be better for removing more material with each individual pass. A faster speed would be better for removing less material during the finishing stages to result in a smoother cut.

There are several factors to consider when choosing the best thickness planer for your woodworking needs. Consider the size of the boards you’ll be planning, how often you’ll be using the planer, and what features are most important to you. By keeping these factors in mind, and using our comparison table to help search, sort and filter through some of the most popular benchtop thickness planers available today, you’ll be able to find the planer that best fits your woodworking needs and budget.