Has anyone used this Planer to shape a board? If so what were the The Good, the Bad and the ugly with this machine?
The 125 has a side mounted motor and can’t be used to shape boards, but the 653 is the king of foam-hogging. Old schoolers can get the 653 to get 1/2’’ cuts. Anyone familiar with the term “hogging out” a blank?
Hi -
Actually the 125 is OK for shaping boards. It's the 126 that has the side motor that hangs down below the base surface.
http://d3cmirsdb60x3h.cloudfront.net/schematics/portercable/125.big.pdf
http://d3cmirsdb60x3h.cloudfront.net/schematics/portercable/126.big.pdf
Well I stand corrected. It certainly would work, but I have never seen anyone with one. Looks similar lots of plastic planers without a good way to adjust the front end. The 126 is the tool of choice for professional door hangers.
I might just pull the trigger on This one and see how it works out.
The Rockwell 126 planer is a workhorse for hanging doors and they definitely are the go to as per G-Rat and Mr. Mellor. I have one that is over 30 yrs old and still kicks a$$. Porter Cable pulled a lousy stunt about 10 yrs ago and announced they were discontinuing the production of the 126's and sent us all into a panic. About six months later they re-introduced it at twice the cost.
ps. "Hogging" is still a used term in removing material, not just foam and not just with a planer. At least in woodworking it is.
Nothing compares to the juice of the 653 Rockwell hog. It needed some special machining to make it work for blanks, it was created as the ultimate straight line planer, but once the excess of the back foot was cut off and milled, it was the shaping tool of the trade. I got mine from Bob Pemberton who bought it from Larry Felker and I used it from 1969 to 1978... and passed it on to a next generation shaper named Don Cason, who hogged blanks unitl the early 90's...
[img_assist|nid=1061954|title=Rockwell 653|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0] The Real Rockwell Planer... the 653!
That one is half way there…
Hey Bud... I don't know how my pic ended up on your post, but I'm glad it finally showed up! Thanks! That machine has seen a lot of action thru the years, and I don't think I could have shaped all those boards without it... I never got the Skil thing... it was like using a glorified surform. With a lose depth slide it was easy to cut rocker, concaves or step decks on the run. If anyone out there is considering full time shaping you're going to want to find a 653.