DW 735 Planer - Blade Info

[Ray Bersch]

I am considering a Dewalt 735 planer but have recently read some private reviews that pan the blades - seems the complaint is that the blades show wear within a short time - 30 to 50 feet. However, I have not read this in any of the "professional" reviews. Anyone have any comments or personal experience with this planer??

[Jerry Bittner]

I have one but have not used it extensively yet. But after this weekend, I'm planning on planning both side of about 200 bd feet of red oak so I should know how the blades hold up.

But before I bought this, I did some checking on forums of this type and one fellow woodwowrker said he ran about 200 bd feet through it without any problems.

Of course, the hardness of the wood is a significant factor in the wear of the blades.

Whether these disposable two sided blades( three) are a better idea than the two blades on the 733 that could be resharpened a few times, I haven't figured that out yet.

Aside from that, my limited expereince with the 735 indicates that it does a better job planing than the 733

[Ray Bersch]

Thanks, Jerry, I'll await your weekend experience. The complaints I read indicated that the wear showed up pretty early on - could be just a bad batch of blades - anyway, I hope to hear from others on the site - talk to you next week.....btw, I have vivid memories of Jacksonville, NC - if you know what I mean

[Geoff Harris]

Hi Jerry,

I'm also in the market for a thickness planer and would be interested in your input on the 735 blade performance. There were only a few negative reviews on the blades, but even fewer positive ones. I'm guessing that folks that are happy with the blades just don't post.

[Bob Marino]

Ray,

I have the 735 and have run maybe a bit less than 100 bf of mostly qswo throough and see no noticeable difference in quality of cut. I like the finish produced and think the 735 is the best of the benchtops by a mile.

Bob

[Robby Phelps]

I also have the 735 and the finish it leaves is just plain beautiful. I have not had any problems with knife longgevity either. I have ran some pretty tough stuff with the set of knives that are on there now (50 bft figured bubinga, 30 bft hard curly maple, 150 bft padauk) and they are still going strong. Hope this helps.

[Gary Bingham]

I've had a dw735 for about a year and a half, and think that the blades hold up pretty well. On my first set of blades, I ran a lot of hard wood through it before I changed them. Mostly jatoba, some purpleheart, hard maple, and wenge. I'm not sure how much, but it was a lot. For my workbench, I used well over 100 pieces of jatoba, most of which was planed down from 4/4 to 1/2"-3/4". It was pretty crappy lumber, and i had to run most of it through 6 times or more to get usable lumber.

Anyway, when I did change them, it was mostly because it started feeding slower and the noise. It still left a smooth surface, but I had to almost push the boards through. I ended up flipping the blades over after about six months, and replaced them after a year or so.

[Scott Brihn]

Ray,

I've owned the 735 for over a year and have run 300-400bf of cherry and am still getting good results from the original set of knives. I owned a 733 prior to this unit and find the 735 much more forgiving with figured lumber.

Regards,

Scott

[Jerry Bittner]

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have the 735 DeWalt planer and was preparing to use it the first time and would report on the blade wear and tear.

Just completed running the equivalent of 2000 bd ft of Red Oak and found some interesting things. First of all, DeWalt tech service rates the blade being good for 3000 bd ft. Question is how do they figure that. For my computing, I was planing 15/16 inch red oak to 3/4. So that's 3/16" of planing. If you have an 8 foot board and you take of 1//32" with each pass, that's going to take 6 passes right. On an 8' board that's going to be the equivalent of 48 bd ft. It doesn't matter too much how wide the board is unless the board is say 6" wide and on each pass you use one side of the blade you could concerivable double the life of the blades. But with varying widths like I had -- 8 to 12' -- you could not "double the life of the blades.

So that's how I figure DeWalt computes the life of the blades.. Now quite frankly, I neglected to ask whether the 3000 feet figure they gave me is for one side of the blades or both. I'm going to inquire about that.

My expereince was that I had to flip the blades over at about 1500 bd feet although I should have done it sooner because as the blades got duller, the feed rate dropped dramatically and in fact started to get some flaking from the rubber rollers. But, even then the finish wasn't as smooth as when I first started -- maybe the equivalent of 150 grit sanding -- but still acceptable.

Two more things learned, when the feed rate drops, take the time to clean the rollers with mineral spirits, Helps a lot. Second, DeWalt recommends setting the infeed and outfeed tables on an incline rather than level. Claims it helps the rollers bite quicker and reduces snipe. The way to do it is place a dime on the base under the cutter head and with a straight edge lay one end on the dime and run the other end to the edge of the infeed/outfeed table and adjust the table to line it up with the bottom edge of the straight edge.

One other thing I'm going to inquie about is whether the blades last longer with deeper cuts or less. That is, on an 8" wide board for example, are you better off cutting 1//32 (half turn of the wheel) or 1/16"?

In any event, after three years of expereince with the 733, the 735 is far superior. No snipe, no lock down level to fool with, very little sawdust escapes the fan assisted chip exhaust and a good job planning. I'm pleased.

[Brad Hammond]

i've got the 735 and had it for 2yrs now. i've sent a lot of wood through it and sent my blades out for sharpening more than a couple of times. it's been dependable and a pleasure to use.
cya
brad

[John Miliunas]

i've got the 735 and had it for 2yrs now. i've sent a lot of wood through it and sent my blades out for sharpening more than a couple of times. it's been dependable and a pleasure to use.
cya
brad

Brad, I really *need* to know: Where do you send them out to be sharpened and how can they do it, seeing as to how those blades are indexed? I'm seriuously confused but, if it works, I'm REALLY interested in knowing where you have that done and how much $$ it costs! Thanks!

[Brad Hammond]

hey john............sorry it took so long to get back to u. i send mine to a guy that lives near ken s. Kevin Tate 874 Chase Road, Huntsville 35811 telephone # 746-0275 Razor Edge Sahrpening Service.
if this is a shameless plug just pm me and i'll send it to ya again. i would have sent it to u privately in the first place, but i thought there might be others who could benefit from the info.
cya
brad