Dewalt 735 planer experiance

[keitht]

I purchased a DeWalt 735 planer to use remodeling my house. I have a stack of red oak, not sure off the top of my head how many feet, but it was about a 3000 pound pallet of the stuff. I knew that this was going to be a tough job for a portable planer and bought the best one I could – certainly the most expensive portable I saw.
After a week or so, the drive belt broke on it. I took it to Dewalt and they replaced it. Then a couple of weeks later, the motor burned up. Again, I took it back and they rebuilt the motor. Then about a week later (yesterday) the motor went out again. Supposedly, Dewalt has to keep repairing it for 3 years, but it took a month to get it back last time and I’m wondering if I will ever make it thru this job?
It is on a 12 gauge power cord. I keep the machine blown out well. I let it rest between boards. I only take off the tiniest amount of wood per cut. And although I’d love to plane these boards down to ¾, I’m only planning them down to 1 inch to save on time and machine wear.
I don’t know of anything else I can do to baby this machine through this job? Anybody have any words of advise?

[SawSucker]

The DW735 seems to be a fairly popular machine, so there for awhile I was reading customer reviews on them when I was in the market for a Planer. I found that alot of folks said that the blades didn't last long, so I'm suprised that you never mentioned anything about replacing the blades after all the hardwood that you've run through it. So perhaps maybe that is why your burning motors up. I also noticed some complaints about a flange in or around the dust port is subject to wear and a few folks have had to replace it to keep dust collection good. I'm not a big fan of their integrated dust blower inside the machine anyway, I have a dust collector that can handle the job. So after all the reading that I've done on the DW735 I came to the conclusion that it is an awfully expensive and over priced imported machine. I ended up buying a used Made in the USA Delta DC-33 Planer with an extra set of Freud blades for less then the DW735. The machine should easily outlive me, it's quite a chunk of cast iron with a 2 hp motor. DeltaDC33Fr.jpg

[Jerry M]

We have a DW 735 in the shop at work. Use it a lot, had it about 4 or 5 years now, thousands of feet of planing. Ours works great. We did have issues with the chip-ejection system (the plastic parts wear out---we beefed it up with some sheet metal). Never had an issue with the drive belt or motor.

(It's certainly not in the same class as Sawsucker's cast iron beast above--it's a "lunchbox planer" after all.....)


I am also wondering about your knives and how sharp they are. That's my best advice: keep the knives sharp and the bed clean and waxed. (and of course, the less cord you run to it, the better)

[keitht]

the less cord you run to it, the better)

Not sure I understand what you mean by this statement?

[SawSucker]

Not sure I understand what you mean by this statement?

He means if you use an extension cord, don't use a longer cord then necessary. And I'll add, make sure that the cord is of proper gauge.

[keitht]

Would a 100 ft 12 gauge cord be bad??? That's what I'm using.

Would it be better with a 25 ft 12 gauge cord?

[Jerry M]

"Would it be better with a 25 ft 12 gauge cord?"

Yes, much better. 100 ft. is a lot of cord. I am not an electrical engineer, but i know that the voltage drops as the cord length increases. Shorter is better.

[FrankC]

Electric lawnmowers are responsible for killing a lot of tools, you need a long cord to use them and unfortunately that cord outlasts the mower so it often ends up in a heap on the shop floor starving some poor power tool.

[bmorto1504]

You can find voltage drop information from this PDF
http://home.mchsi.com/~gweidner/exte...cord-chart.pdf
Low voltage at the source can be a problem as well. A person with a simple voltage tester can check that for you.
bmorto