In addition to my original reply to the question I've been following the
posts in the tread and I would like to throw in some more info.

I'm not plugging one unit over the other nor trying to change anyone's mind
about their choice of delta over de walt or visa versa however a small fact.

As I stated in my original post the name of the game for planers is CPI
(cuts per inch). The higher the CPI the cleaner a cut you get.

The Delta Two speed planer gives you 60 and 90 CPI the De Walt with three
blade gives you 96 and 179 CPI. In a smooth finish contest the De Walt would
win hands down. However, that doesn't mean that the surface the Delta is
going to give you will be lousy. My 12 1/2" single speed Delta gives a
pretty good finish as it is. If it dies I'll spend the money for the De Walt
but until that time I'm not going to feel deprived of a good machine.

Just passing the info on.

--
Mike G.

Heirloom Woods
www.heirloom-woods.net
"NoNameAtAll" wrote in message
...
I'm sure this has been covered here before, but I googled the newsgroup
and
didn't come up with a whole lot of information. I'm condidering buying a
planer
for my home workshop but I have no experience with them and hence have no
idea
which one would be good. I've seen some discussion about the DeWalt 735
and
Delta 580, both of which are 13" planers. The DeWalt is about $100 more
expensive. Is it actually worth that much more? Are there other makes and
models I should consider? Ease of use is important to me because I've
never
used one before. Portability is not a big deal because I don't intend to
take
it anywhere.