In Brief.

All of the planers that we tested performed particularly well and are suitable for their intended use. Two manufacturers in particular really do produce tools with a ‘wow’ factor. Biggest ‘wow’ for us was Festool, tool engineering at its finest. Festool have spared no expense to produce a truly outstanding machine, with a price tag to match of course!  Almost as big a ‘wow’ was for Bosch. Our comments made during the test seem to sum it up being “typically Bosch - beautifully made”.  The Germans really do make beautiful planers!

We actually found it difficult to believe our own findings.  Machines with a single blade design can & do work just as efficiently, sometimes even producing a slightly better quality finish than those machines sporting two blades.  This was the case even though all machines were spinning at similar rotation speeds.  We asked the experts and learnt that recent research shows that for most 2 bladed planers, often only 1 blade usually touches the work?

Overall we can group the planers into those that offer extras, such as parking shoes or dust shute direction control, and those that don’t have these extras.  Without wanting to place too much emphasis on the ‘extras’ we do believe that a parking shoe for instance significantly improves the overall machines ease of use.

What We Did.

Most of the planers that we tested have the standard 82mm cutter width. Our test machines were supplied by the following tool manufacturers & suppliers. Bosch, DeWalt, Festool, Hitachi, Makita, Metabo, Ryobi, GMC and TradeTools Direct.

We unpacked and examined each of the planers on our test bench prior to use. We recorded some of the more obvious visual details such as whether or not the dust could be directed in both directions, and the type and number of blades used. Although we are not able to advise on how long the equipment tested will actually last in the field, we did examine the materials & overall manufactured finish to give you a considered opinion of how robust the machine may prove to be. We do not dismantle tools as a normal part of our testing procedure.  Results of this opinion are shown as our quality assessment.

So that we could get an accurate ‘feel’ for each of the machines, we firstly used them at a commonly used depth setting of ½ mm. A few passes at this depth gave us an indication of the machines overall usability.  We then set the machines to their maximum advised depth and pushed them through some framing timber in order to gauge their overall power and smoothness of cut under these conditions.

There really were no failures as such; none of the machines even looked like they would not be up to the task and all were easy to use and relatively vibration free.  Overall, our scoring system was based on the finer points displayed during testing in order to differentiate between models and brands. 

Much of the time, a planer is required to shape timber quickly & accurately - such as when fitting a door.  We should make the point at the outset that any of the planers tested will do this extremely well and most buyers would not be unhappy with the purchase of any one of these machines.  

Our opinions of overall quality, as well as value for money, form an important part of our assessments.