Best Thickness Planers for a Home Shop
A thickness planer turns rough sawn lumber into stock you can actually use, and it is the tool that makes buying rough lumber worthwhile. The two decisions that matter are cutterhead type and whether you can live with snipe.
Straight knife or helical cutterhead
| Straight knife | Helical (spiral) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cut quality | Good when sharp | Cleaner, especially on figured grain |
| Sharpening | Remove and sharpen both knives | Rotate or replace individual carbide inserts |
| Cost | Much cheaper | Roughly double |
| Noise | Louder | Noticeably quieter |
| Tear-out | Prone on figured wood | Much less |
Helical heads are genuinely better, but a straight knife planer with sharp knives produces perfectly good results on straight-grained stock. If you plane mostly construction lumber and poplar, save the money. If you work with curly maple or highly figured hardwood, helical earns its price quickly.
Snipe, and what actually causes it
Snipe is the shallow gouge at the beginning and end of a board, caused by the board tipping slightly as it enters or leaves the cutters and lifting into the cutterhead. It is the most complained about planer problem, and there are fixes:
- Support the board. Hold the leading end up slightly as it feeds in, and support the trailing end as it exits. This alone removes most snipe.
- Feed boards end to end. Running several boards through continuously keeps pressure on the rollers.
- Take lighter final passes. A last pass removing 1/32 inch or less leaves far less snipe than a heavy one.
- Check roller and bed alignment. If snipe persists and is consistent, the infeed or outfeed table may need adjustment.
- Plan for it. Leave the board a few inches long and cut the sniped ends off. The simplest fix of all.
Capacity: width and thickness
A 12 or 13 inch benchtop planer covers almost everything a home shop planes: it handles boards up to about 12.5 inches wide and around 6 inches thick. Larger 15 and 20 inch machines are for people milling their own stock from logs, and they cost several times more. Buy for the widest board you realistically plane, which for furniture is rarely over 10 inches.
Dust collection is not optional
A planer produces chips faster than almost any other tool in the shop. It needs real airflow, roughly 400 to 600 CFM, and if you do not give it that, chips back up into the cutterhead and the machine jams. See our airflow calculator for duct sizing, and note that a planer is one of the tools that justifies a proper collector rather than a shop vacuum.
Frequently asked questions
Can I plane rough sawn lumber straight from the mill?
Yes, that is exactly what a planer is for, but it only makes faces parallel. To get a board flat on one face and square on one edge first, you need a jointer, or a planer sled, or a hand plane.
How much can I take off in one pass?
About 1/16 inch on a 13 inch benchtop machine, less on hardwoods. Taking more bogs the motor, burns the wood and leaves a poor surface. Several light passes beat one heavy one.
Do I need a helical head to avoid tear-out?
No. Sharp knives, a light final pass, and feeding against the grain direction where it matters will handle most stock. Helical makes difficult grain much more forgiving, but it is not a requirement.
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