Don’t get me wrong, I still love my Skil planers. When I saw the Accurate planer I had to have one. And I love it too. I split the duty up about 50/50 between the Accurate and the Skil. Then I saw Pete Casica’s Mod Bosch and I had to have that also. It’s the best of all the modified plastic planers, puts the Clark Hitachi’s to shame and it’s great especially for rail banding. Anyways back to the Accurate. I told my friend and mentor Glen Kennedy That I got one. And asked if he’d like to try it. So I shot some video of him Demoing it then had my daughter edit it. Here it is, check it out.
I saved for 6 months to get this one. I wish Pete would make a shoe for it. It’s a little heavier than a Skil actually. It does have a locking trigger though. Skil’s run at about 13500 RPM. At full power the Accurate is deafening. It’s like 22000 RPM, and it’s a scarey beast.
Just for fun ive been working on a CAD model of a planer specifically for shaping for a long time now. A buddy of mine has a tormach 1100 CNC mill, maybe ill get around to actually making one this summer. The motor is a tough one though. No idea where to have one made or sourced.
Ive only seen a JN1 up close once in a local surfshop.
This was posted in the “Planer Porn” thread and is a tie for my favorite planer between a polished 190 this crazy thing and that JN2.
Id love to see that JN2 thing in action, any videos ive found of it are junk.
Just saw a used Accurate Planer for sale on the LA Craigslist under surfboards. The guy is asking $1000. Just thought I would pass that on still way out of my budget.
The Skil 100 has proven itself as one of the most durable hand power tools of all time. While the Accurate “appears” very nice, polished etc What is on the inside is just as important. When shapers start using them(if ever) in production settings and a few years go by; whatever faults the Accurate has on the inside will become apparent.
The thing that keeps me from shelling out all that money is parts. What happens when it breaks down? Things happen. Not saying its prone to breakage, but in any machine there are high-wear parts. For the skil, i wouldnt want to have a out of comission planer that i can only get running again at the cost of some expensive or hard to find part.
McDing as the in house skil rep, do you think its worth picking up even though moneys tight? Im handy enough to service myself. Just worried about parts.
Are you asking me if $1200 is worth shelling out for an Accurate?? The point of my comment is that I don’t consider them to be a time tested, proven tool. For a beginner or someone who shapes a few boards a year there are other less exspensive planers that will do that job. For a Pro who is a bit of a tool junkie; He’ll buy one maybe, but he won’t give up his daily driver (usually a Skil) until he has used the Accurate enough to be confident in it’s day to day dependability. For instance; A few guys on this site have bought them, but I haven’t heard any of those guys say they were going to sell their Skils and go only with Accurate. Lowel
I purchased # 11 when they first came available, although I’m not a production shaper I do use it everyday for my custom orders. I love it. The first ones had a bad vibration when you first pull the trigger, I showed Jed Noll and Matt Harper how to fix the situation and now they run super smooth. Louder than my skils but it’s like an extension of my hands.
I have been using the Accurate but it will never take over and phase out my Skil planers. I also have incorporated the use of PeteC’s modified Bosch into the mix more and more. It planes super smoothly and is especially great for the finer planer work and very comfortable to use for rail banding on shorter surfboard designs. It has nice weight and balance. It’s not a feather weight. It’s a great planer.**
I was more asking why incorporate a Skil 100 into my mix. I have two bosch’s one for parts the other i use as my only machine. I think a long bed skil would be great for longboards which ive been getting really into lately. But why not just make a long shoe for my Bosch, instead of going out and buying a skil?
I guess the meat of this question is, what does a skil 100 or JN-2/1 bring to the table that a Bosch, shit-achi, or any other planer does not?
I can understand the major pieces to this argument, mostly metal if not 100% CNC aluminum like the JN-2, heavier if you like that, made in America, but what makes it a better tool for the job, that made them become industry standard?
Skils became industry standard back in the day before plastic planers were around.
Weight is nice. The way the front shoe on the skil works I like a lot more than a modern plastic planer. The motor on the accurate runs like a beast. If you mowing serious foam or wood that is nice. The Rockwell means business as well.
If you making little short boards the light weight plastic planers can be nice.
As wideawake mentioned the Skil planers became the favorite, long before the introduction of inexpensive foreign made models. The Skil 676, 190, and100 planers had lots of power and high RPM. Also the motor sits high, up and away from the surface of the material being planed. The belt cover doesn’t stick out the side very far. It has good weight to it that keeps it down on the material and helps to prevent floating up and off the material without applying downward pressure when making long passes. Making it a simple matter of using the planers weight for easily making smooth gliding passes. The ergonomics of the Skil planer such as handle position and the front hand placement is very comfortable and balanced. Most importantly and probably what made the Skil the favorite to the surfboard shaper is the front shoe depth adjustment lever design. It’s placed in such a way that It makes it easy to control a varying depth of cut on the fly operation. Today the Skil planer is the planer you should want to graduate to after you are finished with the plastic ones that have a flat handle and make planing a surfboard more like your ironing a pair of pants or a shirt. I hardly ever use a long bed. I almost always use the short bed, even for long boards. But I do dig the modified Bosch I got from PeteC. But if you really want to be serious about shaping surfboards, get a Skil 100 and master it. The Accurate is modeled after the Skil 100 so you may as well get a Skil for your fist serious professional planer. By the way. The Skil planers were designed mainly a for professional door hangers to shave and bevel the edges of doors, and was the tool for the serious tradesman to own.
In my opinion the Skil planer is still the best suited planer for shaping surfboards today, period.
