Steve Turner wrote in message ...
I've been thinking about dispensing with my portable planer and moving
up to one of the larger stationary models, probably a 15 inch. If you
have experience using these animules, I'm curious as to whether you
think a stationary table offers any significant advantage. I like the
fact that the Jet and Powermatic planers both have the motor mounted in
the lower cabinet, but that means the head is stationary and the table
moves up and down when you adjust for thickness. Problem? I can
imagine that it would be handy to have auxiliary stationary infeed and
outfeed platforms, but not with a planer of this design.

I'm kinda leaning towards the Delta 15"; comments on this model?

And what about those "return to infeed position" rollers on the tops of
the stationary-head models? Those look kinda handy, and you can't do
that with the Delta; you have to carry the board back around to the
front of the planer to refeed.

I have used several 15" planers of various manufacture, none of them
had return rollers. I have little Jet 12" portable that's about 5
years old with rollers. I've used a couple of 20" planers with
rollers. I would vote for rollers, especially if you tend to tag
team with someone else -- one person feeding and one person catching
to skip plane large stacks of long stock. If it adds heaps to the
cost, however, you can always build/buy/mount a set rollers to the
planer yourself.

hex
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