Are you thinking an electric planer? What kind of cap material do you intend to use - solid - laminated - and if laminated, how thin do you intend to make the laminations? I'm using laminated caps, and I prefer to not plane the caps for final bridge height - I plane the root to set downbearing. I plane the bridge root with a hand plane. Works great. I have been making the laminations in my laminated caps about 2 mm thick - as thin as my Dewalt 12-1/2" electric planer will possibly go (and that took some doing). But I wish to make thinner laminations and I will be doing that with a drum sander. My Dewalt electric planer I would imagine is typical of most that size. It has two knives. Blade changes are not difficult, but sharpening them takes a while. It's fairly cheap, has been reliable. A set of new resharpenable blades costs about $40. Below is a link to my planer. http://www.epinions.com/hmgd-Tools-Benchtop-Planers_12i-DeWalt-Dewalt_Dw733__Heavy-Duty_12-1_2_Portable_Thickness_Planer/display_~full_specs However, if I were to do it again, I would spend another $100 and get their three-knife planer http://www.dewalt.com/us/products/tool_detail.asp?productID=5934 A set of these knives cost about $40 also, but are reversable, so they would last about three times as long as mine. Or, spend another $100 and get their 13-inch planer which I am not familiar with, but can only assume it is another full step up. http://www.tools-plus.com/d-wdw735.html or http://www.dewalt.com/us/articles/press_release.asp?Site=woodworking&ID=972 Or, get a good hand plane, plane your bridge roots for downbearing and use my laminated caps! http://www.farrellpiano.com/bridge.htm Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- >I need to buy a planer mostly for bridge work--preparing cap material and > planing bridges prior to notching and attaching to the soundboard. Not > heavy use but I need something accurate with easy to change blades and not > too expensive. Anybody have anything they really like? > > David Love
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