Dewalt 735

[Dave Malen]

Does this planer do a better job on figured wood than other planers because it has a slower feed rate option? Does anyone know if the knife issue has been addressed by dewalt?
Thanks,
Dave

[jonathan snyder]

Dave,

I e-mailed Dewalt last week, complaining about the knives. Here is their response.

"We have had several customers mention the short blade life. DEWALT has begun to design stronger blades for the DW735, still reversible and not resharpenable, but they should last much longer than the original blades."

They offered to send me a set of the new knives, which I graciously accepted.

Infinity also makes knives for the 735. I just put a set in my planner. They seem to be doing well , but I only have a couple feet of walnut and oak through them. Infinity says they will last up to 4 times longer than the OEM Dewalt knives.

Jonathan


LOML insisted I put a smiley face in here!!!!

[Brad Townsend]

"We have had several customers mention the short blade life."

I bet it's more like several hundred.

[Gary Keedwell]

I bet it's more like several hundred.

Me too. I've had my eye on the 735 for a few years but hesitate because of all the flack I've read about the blades. When the posts start getting good raves for awhile about replacement blades....then I'll look into it again. Isn't the internet great!!!! You can hear about these things and not make as many purchasing boo boos.
Gary K.

[Eddie Darby]

Does this planer do a better job on figured wood than other planers because it has a slower feed rate option?
Thanks,
Dave

I don't see slower feed rates helping much with tear-out. The angle of attack and the grain of the wood have remained the same, so all you get is a somewhat thinner chip. I say somewhat because the depth of cut you choose will still be the major factor in chip thickness. The Time that the high RPM knives spend in the cut is very very short and the wood is only moving slower only by a small amount, so not much effect.

Some people have success with dampening the wood with a moist rag, while others try to feed the wood in at an angle that will go more with the figure in the wood, rather than the grain. On 13" planers you are limited on how much you can angle a piece of wood, but every bit helps.

Sharp knives are always helpful, as is a very thin cut.

I've seen some articles on putting a back bevel on the knives, but this is not an option with the non-resharpenable blades. The DW 733 will allow you to play with the "Angle of Attack" by putting a few degrees of back bevel on it, since the blades are not indexed. This back bevel is a very small bevel of only a few degrees, and just a little wider than the thickness of the chip you are planning to take, say 1/64" thick chip will need a back bevel just a little bit wider than 1/64".

This back bevel has the same sort of effect as going to a steeper York Pitch 50 degree bench handplane over the standard 45 degree plane angle of attack. This increased angle of attack is making more of a scraping cut.

[glenn bradley]

I agree with Eddie here: "The angle of attack and the grain of the wood have remained the same".

When I had some tearout on my DW734 3 knife planer I went next door and used my neighbor's DW735 on the slow speed. No real improvement although the smooth parts seemed smoother. This could just be the knoves no big difference. I was able to get a good surface running on my 734 with the feed at an angle after studying the grain pattern for the best shot at most of the surface. This gave me a surface that only required a little scraping to be just right.

[Gary Keedwell]

Just curious.

What is the technical reason for blades that can't be re-sharpened? Is it the height of the blade? I have read where some woodworkers have sharpened their 735 blades successfully. The blade issue is really perplexing me. (don't take much to do that) I'm gearing up for retirement and I have the old 733 De Walt that has served me well but am thinking of upgrading. Any input?
Gary K.

[jonathan snyder]

Gary,

I think the issue is that the knives are indexed to make setting them foolproof. The knives have a hole which fits on an indexing pin on the cutterhead. I had a set sharpened, and they were OK, because the guy did not remove much metal, but it cost as much as a new set. Another Creeker mentioned he had a set sharpened, but too much metal was removed, so by the time the knives hit the wood the screws holding the knives to the cutterhead also hit the wood.

I don't know why the cutterhead and knives were not designed better. I like all other aspects of the planner.

How are other cutterheads designed to deal with knife sharpening? This is the only planner I have ever used.

Jonathan

[Eddie Darby]

Just curious.

What is the technical reason for blades that can't be re-sharpened? Is it the height of the blade? I have read where some woodworkers have sharpened their 735 blades successfully. The blade issue is really perplexing me. (don't take much to do that) I'm gearing up for retirement and I have the old 733 De Walt that has served me well but am thinking of upgrading. Any input?
Gary K.

The problem with sharpening a disposable blade is that you have to remove the exact amount from every blade. Not easy!!!! So let's say you manage to do that somehow. Now you have to put the shorter blades into a machine that is set for a blade of a certain fixed length.

I would say that probably some people have managed to *Hone* there disposable blades to get a little more life out of them.

If you do a cost analysis, and let's hope the new 735 blades do last 4 times longer, then you will find that tossing them when they get dull isn't really that expensive, since it costs to sharpen the 733 blades.

I see the advantage of the 735 is not having to lock the cutter head manually each time you change the depth of cut, better chip control, and smoother cut from the slower feed rate, to be real huge advantages. Down side is noise increase and getting to be a heavy, almost too heavy, machine to be called mobile.

I use my old 733 for figured wood, since I can put a small back bevel on the blades, since they can be sharpened and are not indexed.

[Gary Keedwell]

The problem with sharpening a disposable blade is that you have to remove the exact amount from every blade. Not easy!!!! So let's say you manage to do that somehow. Now you have to put the shorter blades into a machine that is set for a blade of a certain fixed length.

I would say that probably some people have managed to *Hone* there disposable blades to get a little more life out of them.

If you do a cost analysis, and let's hope the new 735 blades do last 4 times longer, then you will find that tossing them when they get dull isn't really that expensive, since it costs to sharpen the 733 blades.

I see the advantage of the 735 is not having to lock the cutter head manually each time you change the depth of cut, better chip control, and smoother cut from the slower feed rate, to be real huge advantages. Down side is noise increase and getting to be a heavy, almost too heavy, machine to be called mobile.

I use my old 733 for figured wood, since I can put a small back bevel on the blades, since they can be sharpened and are not indexed.

I think you can grind them to be the same height. A long time ago I used to work for Williams & Hussey and the method they used will get each blade exactly the same length, Just wondering how much stock you can take off without effecting the function. If they fix the blades to last 4X times as long, I might reconsider.
I recently bought a Tormek and having alot of fun with it. Maybe if I get the 735 I can experiment. ( Just thinking out loud).

Gary K.

[Dave Falkenstein]

I think you can grind them to be the same height. A long time ago I used to work for Williams & Hussey and the method they used will get each blade exactly the same length, Just wondering how much stock you can take off without effecting the function. If they fix the blades to last 4X times as long, I might reconsider.
I recently bought a Tormek and having alot of fun with it. Maybe if I get the 735 I can experiment. ( Just thinking out loud).

Gary K.

Help me to understand why you would want to try to sharpen blades that are designed to be disposable? If you want a planer with blades that can be sharpened and need to be set up properly, why not get a planer that has that designed in. The advantage to using disposable blades is never having to do any setup when the blades are changed - just pop in the replacement blades. It seems that a person would be wise to pay attention to the design criteria.

I will be anxious to hear some reports on the new Dewalt 735 blades. I recently bought the planer, but have not gone through a set of blades yet. If the new blades do perform much better, I'll get a set as a backup. Otherwise, I'll be calling Infinity.

[robert micley]

the knives stink in terms of life span.i own it.the feed rate is overated.my friend told me there is a comapny that feezes blades to make them last really long.i will ask him the name.has anyone heard of this.

[James Suzda]

Help me to understand why you would want to try to sharpen blades that are designed to be disposable? If you want a planer with blades that can be sharpened and need to be set up properly, why not get a planer that has that designed in. The advantage to using disposable blades is never having to do any setup when the blades are changed - just pop in the replacement blades. It seems that a person would be wise to pay attention to the design criteria.

I will be anxious to hear some reports on the new Dewalt 735 blades. I recently bought the planer, but have not gone through a set of blades yet. If the new blades do perform much better, I'll get a set as a backup. Otherwise, I'll be calling Infinity.

Just for the record, I was the other “Creeker” who Jonathan referred to whom the sharpening company removed too much metal from the blades. You asked why anyone would want to sharpen the disposable blades. For one reason was the cost. At $56 a pop for new blades, and if I could get the old ones sharpened for $20, that would be quite a savings. Especially on how poorly the original DeWalt blades held up for me. It was more or less an experiment to see if I could have them sharpened. BTW, the shop isn’t a back garage setup; they do all the knife and slitter sharpening for all the local paper mills around here.
As for a test as if there is an improvement in the DeWalt 735 knives, I cannot tell you. I just received a set from DeWalt but have not put them to the test yet. Because now I only use the 735 for my “light duty work”. Maybe Jonathan can give us a report on the Infinity knives in due time.
Jim

[Gary Keedwell]

Help me to understand why you would want to try to sharpen blades that are designed to be disposable? If you want a planer with blades that can be sharpened and need to be set up properly, why not get a planer that has that designed in. The advantage to using disposable blades is never having to do any setup when the blades are changed - just pop in the replacement blades. It seems that a person would be wise to pay attention to the design criteria.

I will be anxious to hear some reports on the new Dewalt 735 blades. I recently bought the planer, but have not gone through a set of blades yet. If the new blades do perform much better, I'll get a set as a backup. Otherwise, I'll be calling Infinity.

Gee Dave, Did someone do something to your Wheaties this morning? I am well aware of the "DESIGN CRITERIA". Just thinking I could double my money if I could touch them up a bit. I had my eyes on the 735 since it came out. I was ready to pull the trigger until I heard about the blade problems. I guess I was paying attention to something, huh?
Gary K.

[Dave Malen]

I started this thread because I was thinking of upgrading my planer. I have an older Makita 12 inch (you know the one where the table moves not the cutterhead). It still works just fine(except that on a wide board say 8 + inches its thickness will vary 1/64th from one side to the other- is that fixable? - would you bother? - I did check and adjsut the extension tables - still gives the same result) . I've had it now probably eight years in my hobby shop and I'm still working on the first set of blades. I did take them out and reverse them. Boards go through with no problems and come out with a very good finish. Amazon has the new makita on weekend special for 430 including shipping, which puts it at about the same price as the dewalt with the 60 rebate. So should I just keep my planer or buy the new makita or the dewalt 735. Or maybe I should buy a lie nielsen scrapper plane and forget about the planer. This money is just burning a hole in my pocket.