WEN 6530 6-Amp Electric Hand Planer, 3-1/4-Inch

Excellent quality and performance. I bought and used a hand held manual planer to try to shave down a door due to it rubbing, spent a lot of time trying to plane it down. Bought this and the job was done in 10 minutes and much cleaner job. The other manual “cheese grater” was no comparison.

I used this to smooth out furring strips (ripped 2x4s) in a shower I was remodeling. Very happy with the amount of wood taken off per pass. I just let the sawdust fall where it may and vacuumed it up later. I don't like the bags on any of my tools.

I'll update this review when I've had more time with it, but for now, this is what I have seen. This planer is actually really good at chewing through wood. I'm admittedly new at this, but I'm a tinkerer, so I can figure things out pretty quickly. I just got this planer and started on a scrap piece of wood. It did very well, but I found that it starts out with divots, so I'm guessing it's probably how I'm using it. I can keep at it until I figure out that it's just me or this planer. I only docked 1 star, because the bag fills so quickly you really can't make but a few passes even at the lowest setting before the bag has to be emptied. If I could see it filling up, that would have been more helpful to know when to stop. I found it was best to empty it by pulling the long plastic sheath at the bottom and opening the bottom of the bag where it is widest. Trying to do this through the little whole near the top of the bag is MUCH harder and doesn't work as well. It would have been better to simply have a plastic container than a bag whereby it's easy to dump out the debris and you can see how quickly it fills. Either supply a plastic container or provide an adapter for the standard sized shop vac....I don't know. The container would be more of a must, but an adapter would have been a great addition. For the price...can I really complain? No...I can get an adapter. Having said that, it's filling quickly because it's actually working. It did a very nice job of mostly leveling out an edge of a board, then I did a second piece and then placed them together to see places where they don't lie flush. What I found was two things: 1) The fact that I didn't have the wood on clamps on a level surface (simply freehanding this) caused me to cut at more of an angle...so I recommend clamping the wood before doing this and going as level as possible 2) The edges of the first board I did bowed out from the second I placed next to it, implying I had to trim out the middle of the first one a bit, since the second board looked pretty level. Of course, you should actually use a level to ensure your faces are flat, but I was just messing around with this The build quality is nice, the weight is heavy enough not to lose control of it, but light enough to keep your arms from getting tired. You'll know when the bag fills up when the chips start flying out the other side, so they really needed to put in a plastic container, instead. All the knobs and features are great, but the directions are mediocre at best. I couldn't tell how to put the rabbet guide or the plane guide on without going to the commercial for the product. They need to include that in the manual. Overall, I can see how this will make quick work out of getting boards flush together, along with a sander. As with anything...planning your work out, along with practice will go a long way to ensuring a project goes well.

I had several sticking doors in my home that needed fixed. I didn't want to spend a fortune for my home use and researched electric planers. I was familiar with the WEN Brand so I gave this one a try as my first electric planer. Similar quality planers were double the price. I used the WEN Planer on several hollow core doors and one heavy thick antique door and was very pleased with the performance. I had never used one before and just followed the directions included and set up the planer to remove a small amount at a time as little as 1/64" or you can adjust it to take off much more. TIP: Start slow and use the low settings 1/64, 1/32" and secure your work. The handle can be set to plane left or right handed as needed. TIP: The planer comes with a bag you can attach to the planer to catch the wood chips which is nice, but fills very quickly. However, I used my 1 gallon shop vac and attached the hose in place of the cloth bag. I would turn on the shop vac and then plane the door until I was finished with the vaccum sucking up the wood chips. I'm very happy with my purchase. It made quick work of my sticking doors and was easy to use and clean up. I saved half what I would have purchasing a local name brand unit. WEN is good quality for the homeowners needs. I would recommend this Wen Electric Planer to a friend.

Works wonderful, worth the money

I used it for very hard tropical wood and worked very well. The original blade is good.

I needed a planer to level a small cheap butcher block countertop I'm making. How cheap? It's made of ripped down 2x4s. This planer honestly did pretty good after a little set up , after which it did a decent job of leveling the panel. The cuts were nice and smooth and even enough once I figured out what I was doing. However, there are several caveats you should be aware of, the first of which is that it required quite a bit of fiddling to level the blades with the rear shoe. Also, while the blades were sharp, they were not perfectly straight but slightly curved so that the edges gouged out more than the middle. If anything planer blades should be curved the other way so that they carve slightly more from the middle than the edges. I could have removed the blades entirely and spent some time leveling them on my diamond plates. I personally don't think that's unreasonable, especially for the amount of money you pay for this thing and I certainly would have done so if not for the final nail in the coffin: The front shoe was not parallel with the rear shoe in either direction which caused a lot of snipe no matter how careful I was. And unfortunately that's something I could not adjust and decided to return this unit. I could just exchange this for another one but I've now learned that I like electric hand planers enough that I want a higher quality one. So in summary, at this price point, this is a really good tool. However, if it were priced much higher it would probably not deserve more than one or two stars. Don't expect a more than a moderate level of precision and be prepared to spend some quality time with it getting it set up and adjusted properly. If all you need is some quick and dirty leveling or something like trimming down some door edges or lumber, this thing would be perfect.

I had an interior door that would not close. In the past I would have used hand tools and rasp to shave off enough material to fix it. However, I'm an old guy with breathing problems and not enough stamina and determination to get it done the old fashioned way. This planner was great. It took a several passes and a few rest breaks but I was able to get it done without too much difficulty. I ultimately took off the guides because I didn't need them and they got in the way. The dust bag was a great addition eliminating most of the cleanup. Next weekend I will tackle the two other doors I need to do.