Novice question: 15" Planer vs. 20"

[Jerry Booher]

I have been building my shop cabinets and workbench using 3/4" birch, warped ($27 at the borg) plywood. High frustration level because I thought it was a special deal for good wood and bought 30 sheets. Quality has suffered a little. I only have one sheet left.

Now I am considering tackling a coffee table, bed headboard, murphy bed with sliding book shelves, etc. I have a SawStop with a home-built router cabinet and extension. Total length is over 9'. Drill press, biscuit joiner, power hand planer, circular saw, etc.

I have purchased finished lumber from the borg, so I have not used a jointer or planer. Now here is my ignorance showing. If a coffee table is 36" wide, wouldn't a 36" planer be better than planing individual boards and then gluing them? Should I buy a 15" Grizzly Extreme Series planer or their 20" for $1000 more?

Thanks for reading this and I hope you can educate me.

Jerry

[Gary Herrmann]

If you have the room in your shop and can afford it, wider capacity is always better.

[Lance Norris]

If a coffee table is 36" wide, wouldn't a 36" planer be better than planing individual boards and then gluing them? Should I buy a 15" Grizzly Extreme Series planer or their 20" for $1000 more?

Jerry

Jerry... I use my 15" grizzly planer to smooth and flatten rough lumber. I have made table tops as wide as 26". I simply glue up panels to the width of my planer, and when planed to almost final thickness, I stop and dowel them together and use my hand held belt sander to smooth the joint and bring the panel to final thickness. You might not be able to get a perfectly flat piece doing it this way, but it makes a very acceptable table top, or cabinet side.
If you have the money and the room, get the biggest planer you can manage, because it will save you some work, but you can get by very nicely with a 15" planer.
Have you also looked at the open end wide belt sanders? An 18" sander will do 36", but its not a thickness planer. You will only be able to take very light cuts(sanding) but a good quality machine will give you a perfectly flat panel after the glue, plane, and dowel together process.

[Ben Cadotte]

The idea for wider build ups is to surface the boards first, then assemble. Of course during assembly you will want help to line things up, so people use biscuits, dowels, tenon's. Then after assembly just a little hand planing / scraping / sanding will fix the minor issues. Unless your going to make alot of tops really wide. It's a bit of a waste of money to buy a huge planer. Basically if your going to do a very good job. Your going to handplane / scrape / sand anyway after plaining.

For sizing a planer. Best thing to do is get one that will do the majority of the wood you purchase. Since you really have not purchases rough wood. Maybe take a ride to your local supliers and check out what they have to offer. See how wide the majority of stock is that you are interested in. Most places charge a premium for wider, and thicker boards. So the big ones cost you more per board foot.

I have a 12" lunch box planer and have been tossing around getting a full size unit. I most likely would go with a 15" unless some long lost uncle leaves me some inheritance. 20" would be max for my consideration. As I know its extremely unlikely I would buy any material wider than that.

[David Freed]

I must be related to Tim Taylor, because I always get the biggest, fastest, most powerful machines I can and then sometimes I will modify them for even more power. I have a 20" planer and would like to get a larger one.
With that said, I will agree that for a part-time hobbyist shop, a 15" would probably handle your needs 99% of the time. By the way, if you price a 36" planer, you better be sitting down.

[Bruce Page]

With that said, I will agree that for a part-time hobbyist shop, a 15" would probably handle your needs 99% of the time. By the way, if you price a 36" planer, you better be sitting down.

Not to mention having LOTS of power in your shop.

I have a 15" planer that meets my need 99% of the time.
Wider glue ups using a biscuit joiner, dowels, etc, and a few clamps are pretty painless.

[Jerry Booher]

Thanks for the tips. The 20" is $1000 more than 15". Lot of money for 5"! And at 909 pounds it is 300# heavier. But, more importantly, I know that I will be joining planed boards and not joining and then planing.

Thank you.

Jerry

[Peter Quinn]

I worked in a shop with a 38" BUSS industrial planer. It was nearly as big as a Volkswagen bug. I used it twice in 3 years to make some VERY LARGE counter tops. Can you fit a Volkswagen bug in your shop, have enough length for in feed and out feed and still have room to work? Plus you'll need big 3PHS power (don't want to run a monster like that on a converter), a BIG dust collector. Then you'll want a wide belt sander to take out the planer marks and....

O.K., I'm back from that delirium. I'd say 15" will handle most of a small shops needs, 20" is a nice luxury if your space and budget support that, and 24" is moving into a rather industrial direction. In that place I worked with the 38" planer, a 24" spiral head was the main unit used daily by most people, and an 18" Powermatic was #2. Handled 90% of all operations for a pretty good sized millwork facility.

My 15" does most of what I need, a 20" or 24" may be possible in the future if my small business does well but I doubt I'd ever go that big in a hobby shop. I'm real big on making a connection with a millwork shop that has industrial machinery and paying shop rate to have those occasional large things handled if you have that option in your area. No shame in buying time on a big machine to get the job done and much cheaper than buying the big machine.

PS: That cheap birch from the borg as I'm sure you now know is GARBAGE that is in fact quite over priced for what it is.

[Frank Drew]

I'd get a jointer and some kind of planer before a huge planer and no jointer.
A 36" planer is for a production shop; greater capacity in most tools is always nice, but hobbyists through small custom shops could get by with a much smaller version.