$99 Wilton Planer thoughts and experience

[Troy Donson]

Greetings all.

I have not been able to post very much previously, I've been sidelined medically for a while...

Anyway, I was one on the folks who scored a Wilton branded planer at Rockler recently and wished to impart a few of my findings after using it for a few hours and what I still need to figure out with this $99 planer.

I am a 49 y/o Toyota Technician, so I am handy with tools but still quite new to wood working and woodworking power tools. (I would much rather use my Jet 1642 lathe than do, er, uh, "FLATWORK" but the love of my life has been pestering me to put doors on a Knotty Hickory bookcase I built her last year.) I thickness planed all the boards on her bookcase by hand and I promised myself "Never AGAIN!!!" Sooooo, this is my first planer and if I screw up techniques or use the wrong terminology please feel free to correct me.

After getting the Wilton #99182 12 1/2" planer home and unboxing it, I looked to the instructions on setting it up. (Yes, I know, just consider me the exception to the rule...) The english portion of the instruction booklet is 18 pages and rather thin on actually being usefull. It has only basic information and even too little of that. It will get you going, but there were definitely a few head scratch moments in there...

At this point, do yourself a gigantic favor and go to http://www.grizzly.com/images/manuals/g0505_m.pdf and look at the manual there. While I know they are not 100% perfectly the same, the Grizzly G0505 and the Wilton are, well, call it 98% the same. The Grizzly Manual is much more comprehensive in ALL areas. From work bench mounting options to troubleshooting wood tearout and snipe issues, the Grizzly manual is a gem.

The Wilton came with it's own work stand. (Being 6'3" the stand is about a foot short for me to work comfortably at and I will be building a torsion box in the future to get it up to a better work height. Right now the planer is sitting on my work bench and "outputting" onto my tablesaw's deck. Not a perfect solution but it is working for right now.) The workstand is a garden variety stamped steel affair and went together easily - the second time. I inadvertantly assembled two legs outside the rails and two inside... 5 minutes later it was corrected and the workstand is actually very stable. It comes with rubber feet and can take casters if desired without modification (drilling).

I next removed the top covers and double checked the knife settings as per the Wilton Manual and they were set correctly as is. Next I put the covers back on and cleaned up the excess cosmoline with mineral spirits. I also applied pastewax to the bed and input/output tables. I put on the chip deflector and decided to look into getting a dust collector adapter (Again, looking at Grizzly's web site I came up with this: http://www.grizzly.com/products/Dust...5-Planer/H7516 Not sure it will work without modification, but worth a shot... I will advise when it gets here). I secured the depth adjusting handle, plugged it in and turned it on. It ran smoothly with no excessive vibration.

At this point I want to tell everyone right up front: DO NOT USE THIS WITHOUT HEARING PROTECTION!! I have been an auto tech for over 30 years and have pretty much destroyed my hearing because I was a "manly man" and, well, pretty much stupid. Do yourself AND your family a favor and use hearing protection. No one wants to hear you say "What???!!!!" 50-60 times a day and I really wish I could hear what my grandkids say the first time they say it.

I grabbed my favorite test 2x4 and ran it through. It took 3 attempts to get saw dust as I snuck up on the proper setting. The depth guide on the front is definitely that - a guide. It is close and that's good enough for me. I measure everything as I get close to "final" dimension anyway, so, "close" is good
enough for me at this point. If you are a stickler for precision or like "repeatability" there are good aftermarket gauges you can install such as the Wixey. (http://www.wixey.com/planer/buy/index.html)

The surface quality of the test wood showed 2 things that made me frown. The first was about 3 inches of snipe on the leading edge and the second was a large inconsistant amount of tearout along the face of the board. The snipe was easily fixed by raising the input table using the table height set screws at the bottom front of the machine. Even though I raised the table evenly, the right side needed a full turn more than the left to eliminate 90% of the snipe. The snipe is now just a few thousandths of an inch and is easily sanded out. Turning the board end for end with same side facing up took care of the tear out.

Seems I have alot to learn about reading woodgrain.

Anyway,I have since planed approx 15 bdft of knotty hickory (in varying widths) from a very rough 15/16" thick to a very smooth 1/2" thick. I took my time and took off about 1/32" each pass alternating sides every 3rd pass. I am really happy with this purchase. Definitely want to get a dust hood though... This thing just barfs out dust and debris all over the place!! That being said, I would rather spend 15 minutes with a broom that a few days with my hand planes on knotty hickory. I still love my hand planes, but it's just that I have other things I would like to be doing...

For $99, this is probably one of the best purchases I have ever made...

BTW replacement blades can be found at many places such as toolking.com for $20 or so...

[Chris Schumann]

Thanks, Troy!

I got one of these on sale too, but the shop is just too cold. Yesterday morning the weather man said May is looking good for a warmup in these parts.

[Rob Young]

Troy -

Congratulations. I believe I have the same model planer but with different badges. Looking at some of the photos of the Wilton model and also peaking at the link to the Griz model you posted they all look (and especially the exploded component view in the Griz manual) like the Sunhill Machinery 12-1/2" model. And following the line backwards, I think you end up at Geetech.

I bought the Sunhill 12-1/2" about 3 weeks ago and so far I've been very happy. Run black cherry, walnut, pine and doug-fir through. Mostly I've run pine and doug-fir through because I'm building some test pieces and this gives me a good excuse to practice technique on the planer and jointer. But from some birch, cherry and walnut I made the in-out boxes below as a way of practicing with the planer, joiner, router table (home made) and PC4212 jig. The double decker is walnut with cherry sides (that is a pitch pocket, not a burn mark by the way) and the single one is birch front with walnut sides.

Makes quite a mess on the floor, doesn't it? And you are absolutely right about the hearing protection. I switched from plugs to whole-ear-muff style and that makes a world of difference. And with a garage shop, my ears are warmer now.

[Troy Donson]

Beautiful work there, Rob!!

What jig or blade combo are you using for your finger joints?

[Rob Young]

Beautiful work there, Rob!!

What jig or blade combo are you using for your finger joints?

The PC 4212 can do box joints on 1/2" spacing (1/4" with the mini template). I decided to use that feature for these instead of setting up another jig on the router table or table saw. Good practice for setting up the PC 4212 as the procedure is nearly the same as for dovetails, just don't have to flip the template or change bits & collars.