Surface planer series
A surface planer for a workshop: it flattens one face of a board and squares an edge off it, which is the job that has to happen before anything goes through a thicknesser. Both tables are precision-ground cast iron, and the aluminium fence tilts on its mount, so a face and an edge can be trued without moving to another machine. Chips leave through an outlet below the cutter block and the belt drive sits behind a cover on the flank. It is built in two widths, 150 mm and 200 mm, on the same frame.
Figures are for the 150 mm version. Both widths share the same cutter block, fence, guard and drive - the numbers that differ are set out below.
The same planer with a 150 mm or a 200 mm table. The cutter block, the fence, the guard and the drive are common to both - the only question is how wide a board you need to face.
Shown on this page
The 150 mm version. It covers the width of most joinery and furniture stock, and it is the lighter of the two at 100 kg - the easier one to fit into a bench-scale workshop.
Wider table
The 200 mm version, for door stiles, window sections and boards you would otherwise have to rip down first. The motor steps up to 1.5 kW for the wider cut, and the machine comes in at 107 kg.
The assemblies that decide how the cut comes out.
Both tables are cast iron, ground flat. That is what gives a board a true reference to slide on: a table that is not flat puts its own error into every board that goes over it, and you cannot plane that error out afterwards. It is the one surface on the machine worth paying for.
The fence runs the length of the table and tilts on its mount, so an edge can be squared to the face you have just planed, or set over for a chamfer. It locks with a red handle and stays where it is set.
The knives sit in a block across the width of the table, and the bridge guard lies over it: it lifts to let the work pass underneath and falls back over the exposed knives behind. It is the cover the European market expects, and it is what stops a hand meeting the block on the return stroke.
Chips leave through an outlet in the flank below the cutter block, so the hose runs down and away instead of across the table. The belt drive sits behind a cover on the same flank, clear of the chip path.
Close-ups of the parts you will adjust.
See it cutting
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Specifications are quoted from the manufacturer's current sheet for this machine. Confirm them against the machine before ordering.
A planer gives a board a flat face and a square edge; a thicknesser takes it to a size. You cannot thickness a board that is not already flat, because the machine follows whatever shape the board has and copies it. So the planer is the first machine a board goes through, and it decides whether everything after it comes out true.
150 mm covers most joinery and furniture stock. Go to 200 mm if you are facing door stiles, window sections, or boards you would otherwise have to rip down first - a board wider than the table has to be cut, and you lose the width either way. If you are between the two, measure the widest thing you actually buy rather than the widest you might.
The machine is 1,400 mm long and about 450 to 500 mm wide, and it needs that footprint on the floor. What it also needs is clear space at both ends: a 2 m board needs 2 m clear in front of the tables to be laid on before the cut. Put it where you can stand at the end of the board rather than beside it.
All-rounder series
Home workshops and smallholdings
Contract sawyer series
Contract sawyers and small timber yards
Heavy-duty industrial series
Production mills and timber yards
Three-side planer series
Joinery shops and timber yards
Board edger series
Sawmills and timber yards
Combination planer series
Joinery shops and workshops
Dust collector series
Workshops and furniture factories
Dust collector series
Workshops and furniture factories
Farm series
Farm and homestead duty
Professional series
Contract sawyers and workshops
Industrial series
Industrial production
Monster Sawmills