I'd be interested in what the forum thinks of the Festool HL850e planer. Festool makes wonderful but expensive power tools. This one runs about $490. I thought the ability to control the cutting depth via a thumb switch was pretty cool. Does anyone here use one? I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.
http://benchmark.20m.com/reviews/FestoolHL850ePlaner/Festool850PlanerReview.html
Single blade, slow, not really for shaping. There’s been some discussion already about these: http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1027800?page=1#comment-1284905
I am just an amatuer, but the depth of cut at 0.14 in seems inadequate. You will have to modify.
O.14" is a bit over an eighth of an inch. That's plenty for most folks.
the amateur here again, I defer to your greater experience, but I thought 1/4 in was desirable. I gotta go measure my Hitachi.
Don't get me wrong, just a pretty standard cut depth for hand held electric planers. You may or may not be able to modify it, but at 1/8" you can still do plenty of damage in a single pass! :D
The huge motor housing (it looks like it has it's own baseplate) is going to be a big problem. Surfboard planers need clearance on both sides of baseplate, which is why the bottom of the belt drive housing is cut off on the modded Hitachi.
First thing I did when I brought my 850 home was to skin a blank.
I couldn’t get it to ride at an angle to the stringer. It wanted to track in its’ cut. That seemed like a sole and shoe problem, but it could’ve been a housing problem as was said before. I really didn’t force the issue, just accepted that particular limitation. I don’t know if speed is a problem. It has a massive drum and single blade which I’m gonna say is helical, though not as helical as my P-C Versa. The 850 cuts wood way better than the PC helical carbides and way, way better than the Skil with its’ straight HSS blades ever could.
Heavy as it is, I used to use the Porter/Cable (Rockwell) for shaping and doors, but the cheapest doors are the ones that always had the nails and that helical carbide cost a bloody fortune to replace or sharpen. The depth control on the P/C was pretty natural on surfboards when it was loosened up a bit.
Nobody needs me to add praise to the Skil for shaping.
For hogging-off foam its hard to beat the P/C.
For edge and surface planing of wood the Festool is the champ hands down.
I’ve even used a Bosch with the two double-edged carbides and depth-control knob to good effect for skinning.
I really miss Clark Foam “Light” with which I could use nice, sharp hand planes to tune belly and vee and leave piles of curly white shavings.
JW