My Delta self destructed a short time ago, and I looked into a lot of them , pro's and con's. Tool re-views etc.
I will be purchasing the Dewalt four poster when I need it.
You can get spiral cutters, but I'm just going to get the plain blades.
I think that the built -in fan will be a bonus on site.
Thanks for the heads up on the blades. I have a sprial cutterhead on a jet planer.couldnt justify putting that kind of cutterhead on a portable tho...I've got the DW734. Works awesome hooked up to a festool CT26 with a dust deputy cyclone on top of it. Never had any issues with it other than the rear dust chute being flimsy.
I will however be buying a dw735 with a spiral cutter shortly. I don't find the blades on my DW734 last terribly long, and they are rather pricey around these parts.
With how dewalt portables are screamers it would nice to see a noise reduction, Ive been looking at a helical head for the jointer lately.I've mostly used Dewalt portables and have had no real issues. Odds are the straight blades will be good enough unless you plan on running highly figured material, as long as they are kept sharp.
We put helical heads on the jointer and planer in the shop I'm in now and it made a HUGE difference both in what came out the other end as well as the noise. These are old Whitney and Oliver machines, so not really an apples to apples comparison.
I'd be interested in what kind of a difference the helical heads make in a portable planer.
It does take a LOT more time, and you need to be fairly meticulous about it. If the area where the blades are seated are not totally clean, they are likely to break when you tighten them. Or worse, when the machine is running. On the plus side, when you notice a chipped area, you can just rotate the effected blades.Though from an efficiency standpoint, I'd bet it will take me more time to rotate cutters on a spiral cutter head than re/re disposable blades. .
Try Byrd Tool. I think they make heads for anything out there.With how dewalt portables are screamers it would nice to see a noise reduction, Ive been looking at a helical head for the jointer lately.
I have that same infeed/outfeed table on an old ryobi 10 inch .works but the blades are 45 for a set of hss blades single sided...Yea, I dunno, I'm tired of throwing the blades away. Though from an efficiency standpoint, I'd bet it will take me more time to rotate cutters on a spiral cutter head than re/re disposable blades. Good news is that you can flip them once, and changing them is pretty bloody quick.
Forgot to mention, the DW734 suffers from some noticeable snipe if you use the stock infeed/outfeed tables. I copied a setup that a youtuber by the name of 'halfinchshy' built. works excellently. Just search his videos for snipe, and you'll find it.
