Hey gents, While awaiting a Clark planer from Santa I noticed the day that Home Depot rents planers for about $20 a day. Is it possible to use one of these rentals with whatever barrel they come with? Really don’t want to skin another blank with a 7" block and sureform. It takes the fun out of it!
buy a planer, use it, and return it.
this suggestion may not be entirely ethical, but neither is renting a planer for $20/day!!!
i bought my dewalt planer for $80 and i love it!..(although i did manage to find an exceptionally good deal on it). still, the thought that for 4 days of planer rental you could’ve bought my planer is absurd.
I agree that $20 a day is absurd however I only have to shape one board before X-mas at which time there should be a Clark planer under the tree. So I gatther that the stock barrel that comes with any planer is safe to skin a blank with?
don’t know about a rental. probably been used on a lot of hard woods (doors, etc.). blades probably aren’t all that sharp…might chunk your foam.
i still say do the buy & return. stock blades are fine so long as they’re sharp. whatever’s new out of the box on a planer will certainly be good enough.
also…if you don’t feel comfortable with the buy & return…might not be a bad idea to pick up a cheap 2nd planer before santa comes with the fancy-shmancy clark. save the clark for the stuff that really matters like rail bands and fine tuning. use the cheap-o for basic skinning and taking down the stringers. it’ll keep things nice ‘n’ sharp on the clark for longer.
Good advice. I’ll go buy a cheapy tomorrow. Hope Santa does’nt get pissed when she hears a planer in the back yard next weekend.