Lunch-box Planer: DW734 vs DW735

[Augusto Orosco]

I am extremely new to woodworking (just started a couple of months ago, after finally buying a house and taking over one half of my 2 car garage!). I plan on building my skills slowly, starting with small and simple projects and progressing towards more involved ones as I learn.

Before I go any further, I just want to say that I believe SMC is a wonderful place. I am always amazed by the skill of the people around here and their willingness to share information and help each other.


...now on to the question:

After reading many threads around here, I have pretty much settled on Dewalt for my first benchtop planer. The question now is which one to choose, the 734 or the 735?

The 734 goes for ~$400 and the 735 for ~$550 (when you include the extension tables). As I understand, the extra 1/2 inch, dust ejection chute and two speeds are the main differences between the two. Is there something else I am missing? Is the extra weigth of the 735 a substantial plus? (i.e.: less vibration) is the 735 built to better standards?

I am ready to spend the extra money for the 735 if warranted, but so far, the 734 looks like it can meet my needs nicely.

Any input is greatly appreciated!

[glenn bradley]

I have the 734 and my dad has the 735. The 734 uses a carriage lock, the 735 design "locks automatically". The 735 had reports of shorter than expected knife life and my dad hasn't done enough on his for me to comment. I have been running the same knives on my 734 for over a year but I am only a hobbyist, an aggressive hobbyist but a hobbyist nonetheless.

I don't run 100 lineal feet through the planer in one setting as some folks do. I have made a dozen large projects all requiring the planer so it has seen some use. I have run it for the better part of an hour off and on without issue.

DC is pretty good on the 734 with a 1HP Delta DC. Again, my dad has a much larger DC and the 735 has the chip blower but he gets practically NO dust outside the planer. This is not true of the 734 but it is not a lot.

Well, I guess that didn’t help much. I would have gone for the 735 but a deal came along on the 734. My dad then trumped me by getting an even better deal on his 735 at a show. Maybe others who have experience with both will chime in.

[Jason Beam]

The biggest things to me about the 735 are that you have to buy the extension tables and the knives are disposable.

The 734 comes with the tables and you can resharpen the knives. That pretty much won me over. I didn't need the extra speed since nothing off a rotary machine will leave anywhere near the smoothness of a hand scraped finish

[John Newell]

I went through this process recently and decided on the 734. All the reviews show it performs essentially as well as the 735 on every front other than self-extraction of chips, but if you hook up something to the 734 it does very well. The straw that literally broke the camel's back for me was the extra weight of the 735. Fifteen pounds doesn't sound like a lot, but if you are schlepping the thing up or downstairs or onto a truck, it is - plus, the physical shape of the 735 made it, for me at least, harder to get a good grip on and then walk with. Obviously, if yours will never move, it's not an issue, though.

[Augusto Orosco]

Thanks for the input, guys! After reading your comments, I am leaning towards the 734; it seems to have the necessary features and people are happy with its performance. And that $150 extra could be recycled into the tool fund.

Now I have to start thinking about the jointer...

[Eddie Darby]

Maybe you should think of a jointer and planer combo.

The cost of a jointer and planer separately is close to what you would pay for a Jet combo, and you get 12" of jointer capacity. I've seen the Jet a s low as $1699.00 at some places.

Want a spiral head upgrade. Look at Grizzly's model.

[Augusto Orosco]

Maybe you should think of a jointer and planer combo.

The cost of a jointer and planer separately is close to what you would pay for a Jet combo, and you get 12" of jointer capacity. I've seen the Jet a s low as $1699.00 at some places.

Want a spiral head upgrade. Look at Grizzly's model.

Hi Eddie,

It would be great to have that 12" jointer capacity, but space is somewhat limited in my garage; and I need everything to be easily movable. And the combo's are right now outside of my price range. Maybe if I wait a little longer to save some more, and also take the plunge with an electrician adding 220V circuits ...

[Jeff Booth]

I had the same question a few years ago and when I read the amazon reviews carefully I came to the conclusion that the 735 was great until it broke, it seems there were people who gave it 5 stars and others who gave it 1 star. I recall there were some plastic parts that were breaking. I am not sure, maybe Dewalt corrected it. No one on Amazon seemed to have problems with the 734. I bought one, have run thousands of linear feet through it without flipping the knives yet.

It does however have disposable knives. I don't think they are meant to be resharpened . That was actually something I wanted, I don't want to fuss with aligning the knives, I do enough of that on my old jointer ......

I really like the planer and have found it does suprising well with highly figured woods, so I think the 96 cuts per inch is good enough.

[Jason Beam]

That's odd, mine are 1/8" thick and 3/4" wide blades - easily sharpened. Maybe the 734 has different "editions?". You're not the first one I've heard say that the 734 has disposable blades ... mine are plenty sharpenable.

[Allan Froehlich]

I have the 735 and it is very nice. I do alot of woodworking and I have already seen the limits of this machine. For a 110v unit, nothing else beats it, but I am finding myself wanting a larger unit with a heavier base.

The 735 is LOUD. A spiral cutter from Grizzly would be much quieter.

You should also consider something with rollers on the table. I do my best to keep mine dust free, but I can never seem to keep parts from jaming in there.

[Augusto Orosco]

That's odd, mine are 1/8" thick and 3/4" wide blades - easily sharpened. Maybe the 734 has different "editions?". You're not the first one I've heard say that the 734 has disposable blades ... mine are plenty sharpenable.

When you go to Dewalt's website, the specifications for the planer list their blades as disposable and reversible. They are made of M2 laminated tool steel. Those are the only alternative for blades listed as replacement, so I guess that at least currently, their blades are disposable (maybe as you said, there were not in the past). As I understand, the older 733 model -which I believe is discontinued- was much like the 734, but with 2 reshapenable blades (instead of 3 disposable ones).

I have heard of people resharpening disposable blades regardless, though (not specifically for the DW734, and only twice before they throw them away) ... I wonder if that's something that would work for this planer.

[Dave Falkenstein]

There were problems reported with the 735 when it first came out. There were some gear failure problems and some blade life problems. As far as I know those problems have been addressed and resolved. I bought a 735 about a year ago and have had no problems. The original knives are still cutting well after several hardwood projects.

As a new woodworker, my guess is that you would be just as happy with the lower cost 734. When you want to move up from that, it would likely be into a larger, heavier planer.

[Bill White]

Well, I'm the happy owner of the venerable 733 planer w/ sharpenable knives. 'Course I bought mine years ago when they were expensive. That li'l feller has sure planed a bunch of wood over the years, and still running strong.
Bill

[Brodie Brickey]

I have the 735. it is heavy, it is loud, it also works great! I'm currently planing curly maple 8/4 without difficulty.

I've been wanting to step up to a bigger jointer and was thinking of going with a combo, but I can't get a planar for a reasonable price larger in a combo so there really isn't much point, unless I can save space.