WEN Thickness Planer, Two Speed, 13-Inch Spiral Blade, Benchtop (PL1337)

I'm a finish carpnter and woodworker living in Los Angeles Ca, since 1968. Been using the Dewalt 735 series planers for a very long time, thouht I'd switch it up and give this one a shot. Only used it about a dozen times so far on walnut, white oak and vertical grain douglas fir. And am very pleased with the results. It's quieter, lighter, cheaper and easier to operate than the 735. Might also have better chip collection. if these results continue it will pretty much be a great deal. So, very impressed with the performance of this tool to date. BTW chipped blades are easier and cheaper to fix than with the 735.

My wife and I recently bought a CNC woodworking router and have started a part time business with it. We bought a lot of pine slab wood from an Amish saw mill and were using a heavy duty sander to finish the boards. This planer has made that job SO much easier. It leaves very little effort and leaves the wood very smooth so it takes very little finish sanding. You do get snipe near both ends of the wood, so either have to leave the boards long enough to cut the snipe off or use scrap boards of the same thickness in front and behind so the snipe is left on those boards. The directions say you can adjust the feed trays to stop this but I haven't really tried that. There is also a lot of sawdust scrap, so it really must be hooked up to a shop vac, which works very well. This planer is a little wider than a lot of them and even though 13 inches is kind of limiting, wider planers are MUCH more expensive. We've used it quite a bit over the last few months and it's still going as strong as when we got it without having to change blades yet. Very happy with it.

This Wen planer is my first experience with a feed through planer. Since smooth cedar boards are expensive and I wanted to build a horizontal cedar fence the overall cost would have been prohibitive. Buying rough cut cedar is an order of magnitude less expensive than the smooth variety so I took a flyer on using a planer. Wow, I’m glad I did. Operation is straight forward and after a few test pieces I began planing the 4x4 cedar posts and a quantity of 6”x1”x96” boards. The high speed steel cutter blades lasted for about 10 or so boards (planed both sides), rotated them and did 10 more. Then I replaced the cutters (easy but takes time) with carbide blades and went on my way. I like how the necessary tools are attached right to the machine. Operation of the Wen planer is straight forward and self explanatory so even a newbie can start putting out good results. I also purchased two roller stands and spent some time making sure the boards went through straight, level and true. Result was no snipe which surprised me since many YT videos are how to prevent snipe. Setting up measurement and adjustment is straight forward and little effort. About 1/16” is most I would remove at one time and this worked out well for me. I also purchased the Wen planer stand which gives a solid base for the planer. As the photo shows the results were satisfying with only one pass. What was a collection of rough cut cedar boards and posts became a really attractive set of lumber that looks great. Well worth the money, even for this one project, and I recommend this planer. There will be more projects now that I see how great the results were. Now to get as excited to dig the post holes.

For an entry level planer, I was quite impressed with the functionality and build quality of this unit. I have not seen WEN with two speeds, so that was a very welcomed addition to the planer when purchasing. It is heavy, so it's best to mount it to a mobile cart to move it about the shop. The cutter head being a spiral cut is a step up from the stock Dewalt's and others that ship with straight blades. The 13" cut is also another great feature to it for planing cutting boards or other material of varying sizes. It says in the manual that the wings are adjusted from the factory, but I had to adjust them after receiving the unit to remove snipe. After doing a very slight adjustment, leveling the infeed and outfeeds to being level instead of the "v" adjustment, I have had no issues. Dust collection on the unit could be better as the shroud does not seal very well and blows a lot of the chips/dust out onto the feed table and around it. Great size unit for 13 inch and very competitive with the more expensive brands.

In my job experiences there were many opportunities to run commercial planers and they were work horses and so is this one! It is smaller but with the spiral cutter head it will plane wood and hardly slow down! There was some Ipe wood left over from another job this wood is Brazil hardwood and so hard you can't drive a nail in it! At taking off 1/32 at a time it never slowed down and came out smooth as glass! it had a little snipe until the infeed and outfeed tables were adjusted up a taste and now no snipe! The tricks to keeping a great planer is be patient and take real small bites, clean dirty boards with a wire brush,vacuum it out after each use and do maintenance according to the manual and it will last a long time!The evac system works great with a shop vac also! There was a lot of shopping done before this one was chosen and turns out you get a lot for the money! Am very happy ! Go ahead pull the trigger on it you want be sorry!

I make small decorative boxes, wine racks, cutting boards etc... I don't plane long boards, or actually use the planer too heavily. But, I do use highly figured, and mostly exotic woods. I had a difficult time planing those woods without tear-out on my previous planer (which was a WEN 12.5 inch two blade planer). I never attempted to take more the 1/64" depth in a pass.With this new Spiral planer I get much smoother cuts on woods like Zircote, Wenge , Leopardwood, Quilted Maple, Black Palm and burls.. This Spiral planer is far and away better for my needs. Two photos are a gift box using leopard wood, and quilted maple. Planer cut smoothly. The extra width is nice too, since I pushed it to the width limit on chevron charcuterie boards. The photo shows my last little project using this planer.