WEN PL1326 15-Amp 13-Inch Spiral Benchtop Thickness Planer

My wife and I recently bought a CNC woodworking router and have started a part time business with it. We bought a lot of pine slab wood from an Amish saw mill and were using a heavy duty sander to finish the boards. This planer has made that job SO much easier. It leaves very little effort and leaves the wood very smooth so it takes very little finish sanding. You do get snipe near both ends of the wood, so either have to leave the boards long enough to cut the snipe off or use scrap boards of the same thickness in front and behind so the snipe is left on those boards. The directions say you can adjust the feed trays to stop this but I haven't really tried that. There is also a lot of sawdust scrap, so it really must be hooked up to a shop vac, which works very well. This planer is a little wider than a lot of them and even though 13 inches is kind of limiting, wider planers are MUCH more expensive. We've used it quite a bit over the last few months and it's still going as strong as when we got it without having to change blades yet. Very happy with it.

I'm a finish carpnter and woodworker living in Los Angeles Ca, since 1968. Been using the Dewalt 735 series planers for a very long time, thouht I'd switch it up and give this one a shot. Only used it about a dozen times so far on walnut, white oak and vertical grain douglas fir. And am very pleased with the results. It's quieter, lighter, cheaper and easier to operate than the 735. Might also have better chip collection. if these results continue it will pretty much be a great deal. So, very impressed with the performance of this tool to date. BTW chipped blades are easier and cheaper to fix than with the 735.

I have a fairly well equipped shop with most all stationary, bench and power tools for a homeowner. I am pretty picky about the tools I buy balancing quality with cost. I had never had a WEN product before until I bought their 12 inch variable speed drill press last year. I was hesitant because the cost was low but it had all the features I wanted. What an awesome machine. It exceeded my expectations. So when it came time to buy a planer I thought I would give WEN a try again. I compared all the brands. Everyone raves about DeWalt all the time. I'm sure its a great machine, but I was thinking 'do I really need that for the cost?'. The WEN is very well built. Most all reviews for a WEN planer are for the straight blade version but I bought the spiral cutter head for a little extra cost. It cuts extremely clean, is fairly quiet for a planer and easy to use. Although I work in my shop all the time, I haven't used a planer since shop class in high school almost 40 years ago. When I first got it I wasn't sure how everything operated. After a couple passes it was as easy as pie. Even let the wife do a couple passes and she loved it too. Great results and highly recommended.

For an entry level planer, I was quite impressed with the functionality and build quality of this unit. I have not seen WEN with two speeds, so that was a very welcomed addition to the planer when purchasing. It is heavy, so it's best to mount it to a mobile cart to move it about the shop. The cutter head being a spiral cut is a step up from the stock Dewalt's and others that ship with straight blades. The 13" cut is also another great feature to it for planing cutting boards or other material of varying sizes. It says in the manual that the wings are adjusted from the factory, but I had to adjust them after receiving the unit to remove snipe. After doing a very slight adjustment, leveling the infeed and outfeeds to being level instead of the "v" adjustment, I have had no issues. Dust collection on the unit could be better as the shroud does not seal very well and blows a lot of the chips/dust out onto the feed table and around it. Great size unit for 13 inch and very competitive with the more expensive brands.

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.