Wood Planers Are Useful

We get so many emails from customers asking us about wood planers. Some of them don't even know what is a wood planer and just want to know how to get their wood nice and smooth. To us, a wood planer is as necessary as a saw, so the question takes us by surprise. But so many people have been asking that we decided we had better answer.

A tree is basically cylindrical in shape when it's cut down. It is then sawn into planks with a big-toothed, fast cutting saw. After that, the planks undergo a curing process either naturally or in a kiln. Only then is it ready to be planed or sold as is.

The wood you buy in a large lumber yard has been run through an industrial wood planer. Thousands of yards of wood per hour can be turned into perfect two by fours in this way. The biggest operations send out truckloads of pine and Douglas Fir every day to meet the demands of builders across the country.

Rough sawn hardwood is usually sold to medium scale manufacturers of furniture, small and one man wood craftspeople and wood hobbyists. There is a wood planer for everyone's needs. A manufacturer with a hundred employees will have a wood thickness planer that can make a great deal of wood ready for construction into tables, chairs, etc., while smaller operations will have one that takes up less space - maybe even a multi-purpose machine that is a saw and planer and more in one compact machine.

These, too, come in a wide range of sizes and quality. Even medium-sized cabinetmaking businesses find some of the more powerful 3-phase machines to be practical and efficient. Small one or two man businesses with limited space find the better models of these machines can produce the beautiful results they need for their demands.

Home hobby woodworkers usually start off with a hand-held wood planer. These are really not very good for getting a uniform thickness - that's not what they're designed for. An inexpensive thickness planer may be a better idea for the novice woodworker. The cheap ones may not be powerful enough for some hardwoods and may not take wide planks, but they will be good enough for straight grained woods like mahogany.

It's a good idea to think about what you might be wanting to do with your wood planer into the future before you make your first purchase. The cheap one you buy on sale may disappoint you when your hobby turns into your passion and you go out and buy a highly figured length of walnut to turn into a showpiece walnut table.

Now that you know what is a wood planer, you are ready to go out and buy one and start getting creative. There's no greater satisfaction than seeing your efforts turn into something you can be proud of, so get started!