WEN PL1326 15-Amp 13-Inch Spiral Benchtop Thickness Planer

I'm a retired professional with a Felder 741 combination slider, planer and shaper. If you know Felder, then I don't have to tell you they are one of the industry standards for accuracy. However, I'm sick of building a piece of fine furniture, only to discover that one last piece is too thick, or whatever. That means raising the jointer bed, cranking up the planer head, and in the process losing whatever was setup on the saw. Also, I've wanted a spiral cutter for the planer, but $1,000+ makes no sense when the Felder knives already do a superb job, and of course I would still have the changeover problem. I'v thought about a bench top planer, but that's also around a grand, so not happening. Anyway, I saw some reviews on the Wen 13" with a segmented cutter head. Odd looking cutter head, and the inserts are HSS instead of carbide, but at $400 for the one speed I decided to take a risk. I just unpacked and plugged in this morning. Connected to my 3hp Onida Gorilla using a 4" hose. I then ran a test using 1.5" air dried red oak. Results were a surprise, to say the least. Beautiful finish on both sides, even at the one speed, which is quite fast. No sign of of any cutters out of alignment. Almost no snipe - I did not adjust the tables. Dust collector gets most, but not all, chips. ( I also tried connecting a shop vac which was not that great, so I'd recommend a dust collector). Segmented cutter heads are supposed to be quiet, but brush motor noise makes it about as loud as a knife machine, at least in my opinion. Hearing muffs required. This is not a complaint. For $400 you can't have everything. Bottom line, I'm glad I bought this thing. Once the four sided cutters are dull I might upgrade to carbide, but we'll see. Sometimes HHS produces a better finish than carbide, so I might just buy another set of those, depending on how long the originals last. The question now is longevity. Machine seems solid and weighs 80 pounds, so for my needs it will probably be OK. We will see. Bottom line, doe a great job for less than half the price of a name brand. The machine turned out to be a pleasant surprise, producing an excellent finish.

Planer works well for making all your wood the same dimensions, and making the surface smooth. Ive used it for two projects so far: flattening exterior window trim so all corners/edges line up for assembly; and for repurposing oak hardwood flooring: removed the old varnish, damaged surfaces and areas where a drum sander couldn't remove the surface sanding consistently. I took 3/32’s off the oak flooring in one pass and it looks new. I dont think i will sand the oak because it planed it smooth. Didn't bog down under load. Feeding was very good though some long pieces (92”) needed a little help with pushing. I do wish there was more capability with sawdust suction to keep the fold down tables cleaner as you feed the planer your projects. Impressed with the quality of machine and results on repurposing oak flooring. Made in Taiwan which is a plus. I dont have any reason(s) for not buying this spiral planer. Good purchase for DIY’ers.

Very impressed . Extremely well packed and packaged . Build quality is great. Set up was a breeze . There was not much to set up, attached the dust collection and adjustment handle. Thats about it . Checked the alignment on indeed and outfield. I was actually surprised at how quiet it is also ... quiet for a thickness planer anyway . Ive used several other planers before and honestly for this price point it is beyond worth the money . Smooth feed ,the cuts leave an exceptionally smooth surface . So far I have seen no tear out and no sniping to speak of .

My wife and I recently bought a CNC woodworking router and have started a part time business with it. We bought a lot of pine slab wood from an Amish saw mill and were using a heavy duty sander to finish the boards. This planer has made that job SO much easier. It leaves very little effort and leaves the wood very smooth so it takes very little finish sanding. You do get snipe near both ends of the wood, so either have to leave the boards long enough to cut the snipe off or use scrap boards of the same thickness in front and behind so the snipe is left on those boards. The directions say you can adjust the feed trays to stop this but I haven't really tried that. There is also a lot of sawdust scrap, so it really must be hooked up to a shop vac, which works very well. This planer is a little wider than a lot of them and even though 13 inches is kind of limiting, wider planers are MUCH more expensive. We've used it quite a bit over the last few months and it's still going as strong as when we got it without having to change blades yet. Very happy with it.

I'm a weekend woodworker/hobbiest for no reason other than to change gears from my long hours behind a keyboard or in data and server rooms so my experience is "intermediate" but goes back to 1997. I have a woodshop full of tools and know my way around power and hand tools pretty well. Despite my years of woodworking, I had only electric and manual hand planers as I enjoy the manual process most but recently fell in love with trees. As such, I began harvesting trees about my wooded 10 acres so had to upgrade many tools. Upon months of research and two models I returned to Lowes, I discovered the following: When running a slab of Hickory through a 2 and 3-blade Planer, expect lots of snipe and a poor surface. A single hidden fence nail will destroy your blades and you'll have to replace all of them. Running cherry wood through, fares better but still rougher than I'd like on 2 and 3 blades. 2 and 3 blade Planers are cheaper for a reason. Upon returning both, I fixed my eyes upon a Spiral Bladed Planer. Why? Better surface obviously, but more important, a spiral blade is made up of many little square blades in a corkscrew configuration on a cylinder. A dulled blade is simply rotated 1/4 and it's good as new. Plus, you can do that 3 more times as each surface is sharp. -You don't destroy and replace the entire spiral. I intended to buy Dewalt but at 600+ I decided to try WEN's version instead. I have other WEN products in my shop and have never been disappointed so I took a shot. (See Pics) I chainsaw-slabbed a 24" piece of hickory with some wet-ish heartwood and ran it through the planer about 10 times on each side. Pignut Hickory has a Janka hardness of 2,140 lbf when compared to White Oak (1,350 lbf), Black Walnut (1,010 lbf) or standard Douglas Fir pine you'd get at Lowes (620 lbf). I found that planing off more than an 1/32 per pass was pretty taxing on the machine for Hickory but the Black Walnut planing (pic 4) handled 1/32 easily. Pine could pass 1/16 or deeper with little issue. The front gauge is my favorite feature as I only need to lower the blade mill onto the wood to see how deep I'm going. The gauge does go up to 1/8 but what kinda Psychopath planes 1/8th per pass? It's a planer, not a table saw. Additionally, remember that the softer the wood, the higher the probability of snipe so keep your depth low to save those ends. Still, snipe was far more reasonable than the 2 and 3 blade systems I tried previously. Let's talk support now. Mine came with a cracked dust collector. A very small and minor crack on this flimsy plastic piece but no surprise there. It still worked even with the crack but I'm not dropping 400+ on something that's got even the slightest blemish on it so I emailed WEN support at the email on the Owners Manual. Don't bother, they don't respond to emails. I called them the next day and spoke with a US Based Support Rep. He seemed annoyed to help but actually did his job and sent me a new dust collector. Friendly? No. Supported. Yes. This cost the product a star as I hate calling and waiting on hold despite the short wait time. Don't give an email if you don't respond to them, is all I'm saying. Overall, the Machine is a 5-star purchase for performance, ease of use and value. I don't regret saving 200+ on buying this WEN instead of Dewalt.

I ran a wood shop for a number of years, now I just work out of my garage for pleasure. My older Dewalt planer and seen better years of service, but I got tired of rebuilding every few years. Over the last couple of years, I have bought several other Wen items from Amazon, a drill press and a jointer. Have been completely satisfied with their product. The planer arrived well packaged and easy to assemble. I adjusted the infeed and outfeed tables in about 30 minutes, ran a few test cuts, no snipe whatsoever! Very impressed with the results. The planer makes less noise than my Dewalt did, and is even quieter when cutting. I definitely have no regrets so far picking up this planer. I can't speak to the longevity at this time, but if it lasts it works as well as my previous purchases, I'll be quite satisfied. I would definitely recommend this planer for ease of use and quality workmanship. 30 seconds or so of sanding with 120 removes any marks that the planer may have produced. I ran some nice walnut and Maple through the planer, super happy with the results. Photos are before and after sanding, note that the wood was sent through on a diagonal. no issues!

Pretty dang impressed with the quality of planing for the price. This is only $50 more than the Harbor Freight Hercules, but the spiral head and quality of cut is much better.

I agonized over this tool purchase more than any other in my well equipped woodshop. I bounced between this one and the (all hail the Yellow) Dewalt. Ultimately, I could not in my mind justify the considerable (like $700) cost difference assuming a similarly apportioned Dewalt with infeed/outfeed tables and a spherical head, and I have good experience with other Wen power tools, so I decided to take a chance on this. I honestly could not be happier! This is the best planer I've owned to date. Runs smoothly and cleanly and I have yet to experience any snipe using the attached tables. I could start a wood chip business with the large, curly pieces it produces so it's a use-outside-only affair until I get a healthy extraction system, but that's not a big deal as it is relatively portable. Sort of...it does weigh just south of 100 lbs but ergonomically placed handles make it manageable weight. My only concern was the depth-of-cut mechanism indicator is only a round pin in the middle of the planing area as opposed to the full width in the Dewalt, but I have not found it to matter as everything I plane is in the middle of the planing area anyway...go figure. With the cost of even 2/4 wood now it will pay for itself rather quickly as I can turn standard big box store construction lumber into usable woodworking stock easily.

The product's functionality is excellent; however, its 120V voltage requirement renders it unsuitable for the UAE and potentially the wider Middle East. I incurred a $100 expense purchasing a converter. Product descriptions should clearly specify voltage requirements. Despite this, the equipment itself is high-quality. I give 3 stars because of the 120v missing information provided.