PL1303 15-Amp 13-Inch Three-Blade Benchtop Thickness Planer , Black

I'm a retired professional with a Felder 741 combination slider, planer and shaper. If you know Felder, then I don't have to tell you they are one of the industry standards for accuracy. However, I'm sick of building a piece of fine furniture, only to discover that one last piece is too thick, or whatever. That means raising the jointer bed, cranking up the planer head, and in the process losing whatever was setup on the saw. Also, I've wanted a spiral cutter for the planer, but $1,000+ makes no sense when the Felder knives already do a superb job, and of course I would still have the changeover problem. I'v thought about a bench top planer, but that's also around a grand, so not happening. Anyway, I saw some reviews on the Wen 13" with a segmented cutter head. Odd looking cutter head, and the inserts are HSS instead of carbide, but at $400 for the one speed I decided to take a risk. I just unpacked and plugged in this morning. Connected to my 3hp Onida Gorilla using a 4" hose. I then ran a test using 1.5" air dried red oak. Results were a surprise, to say the least. Beautiful finish on both sides, even at the one speed, which is quite fast. No sign of of any cutters out of alignment. Almost no snipe - I did not adjust the tables. Dust collector gets most, but not all, chips. ( I also tried connecting a shop vac which was not that great, so I'd recommend a dust collector). Segmented cutter heads are supposed to be quiet, but brush motor noise makes it about as loud as a knife machine, at least in my opinion. Hearing muffs required. This is not a complaint. For $400 you can't have everything. Bottom line, I'm glad I bought this thing. Once the four sided cutters are dull I might upgrade to carbide, but we'll see. Sometimes HHS produces a better finish than carbide, so I might just buy another set of those, depending on how long the originals last. The question now is longevity. Machine seems solid and weighs 80 pounds, so for my needs it will probably be OK. We will see. Bottom line, doe a great job for less than half the price of a name brand. The machine turned out to be a pleasant surprise, producing an excellent finish.

Works nicely! It is loud, but I have never seen a machine that does this hard of a job this quickly or smoothly that it doesn't make a lot of noise. It draws the wood easily into and through the machine, the finish it leaves is remarkably smooth. The width is sufficient for many of my projects for wider ones I do it is sections and join them together after. All in all, a very nice machine that does a very good job!

I love my WEN PL1326 15-Amp 13-Inch Spiral Benchtop Thickness Planer. I mean it’s so much cheaper than others, yea you know the ones. And with the spiral cutter blades, butter as is my wen 6-inch spiral jointer. And both do an excellent job on wood. So, for me there can be no other. Hay it really is good product. hay guys if your just getting into wood working look into Wen products for all your needs. Ok guys later

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.

Pretty dang impressed with the quality of planing for the price. This is only $50 more than the Harbor Freight Hercules, but the spiral head and quality of cut is much better.

Very easy to use. I was pleasantly surprised with the finish. I was glad I went with the 13 inch spiracle cutter. It does have some snipe on the end after feeding through as many planets do, but by gently holding the wood up as it finished, I was able to pretty much eliminate it. Very happy with my purchase. In the two pics are a before and after of some Philippine Acacia I ran through. 2 different pieces from the same board.

Most excellent quality. Features are numerous. Spherical cutter superior to three blade units.

I ran a wood shop for a number of years, now I just work out of my garage for pleasure. My older Dewalt planer and seen better years of service, but I got tired of rebuilding every few years. Over the last couple of years, I have bought several other Wen items from Amazon, a drill press and a jointer. Have been completely satisfied with their product. The planer arrived well packaged and easy to assemble. I adjusted the infeed and outfeed tables in about 30 minutes, ran a few test cuts, no snipe whatsoever! Very impressed with the results. The planer makes less noise than my Dewalt did, and is even quieter when cutting. I definitely have no regrets so far picking up this planer. I can't speak to the longevity at this time, but if it lasts it works as well as my previous purchases, I'll be quite satisfied. I would definitely recommend this planer for ease of use and quality workmanship. 30 seconds or so of sanding with 120 removes any marks that the planer may have produced. I ran some nice walnut and Maple through the planer, super happy with the results. Photos are before and after sanding, note that the wood was sent through on a diagonal. no issues!