WEN PL1252 15-Amp 12.5-Inch Two-Blade Benchtop Thickness Planer , Black

I'm a retired professional with a Felder 741 combination slider, planer and shaper. If you know Felder, then I don't have to tell you they are one of the industry standards for accuracy. However, I'm sick of building a piece of fine furniture, only to discover that one last piece is too thick, or whatever. That means raising the jointer bed, cranking up the planer head, and in the process losing whatever was setup on the saw. Also, I've wanted a spiral cutter for the planer, but $1,000+ makes no sense when the Felder knives already do a superb job, and of course I would still have the changeover problem. I'v thought about a bench top planer, but that's also around a grand, so not happening. Anyway, I saw some reviews on the Wen 13" with a segmented cutter head. Odd looking cutter head, and the inserts are HSS instead of carbide, but at $400 for the one speed I decided to take a risk. I just unpacked and plugged in this morning. Connected to my 3hp Onida Gorilla using a 4" hose. I then ran a test using 1.5" air dried red oak. Results were a surprise, to say the least. Beautiful finish on both sides, even at the one speed, which is quite fast. No sign of of any cutters out of alignment. Almost no snipe - I did not adjust the tables. Dust collector gets most, but not all, chips. ( I also tried connecting a shop vac which was not that great, so I'd recommend a dust collector). Segmented cutter heads are supposed to be quiet, but brush motor noise makes it about as loud as a knife machine, at least in my opinion. Hearing muffs required. This is not a complaint. For $400 you can't have everything. Bottom line, I'm glad I bought this thing. Once the four sided cutters are dull I might upgrade to carbide, but we'll see. Sometimes HHS produces a better finish than carbide, so I might just buy another set of those, depending on how long the originals last. The question now is longevity. Machine seems solid and weighs 80 pounds, so for my needs it will probably be OK. We will see. Bottom line, doe a great job for less than half the price of a name brand. The machine turned out to be a pleasant surprise, producing an excellent finish.

Works nicely! It is loud, but I have never seen a machine that does this hard of a job this quickly or smoothly that it doesn't make a lot of noise. It draws the wood easily into and through the machine, the finish it leaves is remarkably smooth. The width is sufficient for many of my projects for wider ones I do it is sections and join them together after. All in all, a very nice machine that does a very good job!

Very easy to use. I was pleasantly surprised with the finish. I was glad I went with the 13 inch spiracle cutter. It does have some snipe on the end after feeding through as many planets do, but by gently holding the wood up as it finished, I was able to pretty much eliminate it. Very happy with my purchase. In the two pics are a before and after of some Philippine Acacia I ran through. 2 different pieces from the same board.

For an entry level planer, I was quite impressed with the functionality and build quality of this unit. I have not seen WEN with two speeds, so that was a very welcomed addition to the planer when purchasing. It is heavy, so it's best to mount it to a mobile cart to move it about the shop. The cutter head being a spiral cut is a step up from the stock Dewalt's and others that ship with straight blades. The 13" cut is also another great feature to it for planing cutting boards or other material of varying sizes. It says in the manual that the wings are adjusted from the factory, but I had to adjust them after receiving the unit to remove snipe. After doing a very slight adjustment, leveling the infeed and outfeeds to being level instead of the "v" adjustment, I have had no issues. Dust collection on the unit could be better as the shroud does not seal very well and blows a lot of the chips/dust out onto the feed table and around it. Great size unit for 13 inch and very competitive with the more expensive brands.

I ran a wood shop for a number of years, now I just work out of my garage for pleasure. My older Dewalt planer and seen better years of service, but I got tired of rebuilding every few years. Over the last couple of years, I have bought several other Wen items from Amazon, a drill press and a jointer. Have been completely satisfied with their product. The planer arrived well packaged and easy to assemble. I adjusted the infeed and outfeed tables in about 30 minutes, ran a few test cuts, no snipe whatsoever! Very impressed with the results. The planer makes less noise than my Dewalt did, and is even quieter when cutting. I definitely have no regrets so far picking up this planer. I can't speak to the longevity at this time, but if it lasts it works as well as my previous purchases, I'll be quite satisfied. I would definitely recommend this planer for ease of use and quality workmanship. 30 seconds or so of sanding with 120 removes any marks that the planer may have produced. I ran some nice walnut and Maple through the planer, super happy with the results. Photos are before and after sanding, note that the wood was sent through on a diagonal. no issues!

I love my WEN PL1326 15-Amp 13-Inch Spiral Benchtop Thickness Planer. I mean it’s so much cheaper than others, yea you know the ones. And with the spiral cutter blades, butter as is my wen 6-inch spiral jointer. And both do an excellent job on wood. So, for me there can be no other. Hay it really is good product. hay guys if your just getting into wood working look into Wen products for all your needs. Ok guys later

Works like a charm. Helical blades on mine. Finish looks great. Dust collection is not spectacular, but maybe if it had more suction it'd be fine. I use a small shopvac. It doesnt affect performance just a little messy. Some cheap little knobs and measuring do-dads but that's expected. It doesn't matter. It planes great. Made my job way easier.

This Wen planer is my first experience with a feed through planer. Since smooth cedar boards are expensive and I wanted to build a horizontal cedar fence the overall cost would have been prohibitive. Buying rough cut cedar is an order of magnitude less expensive than the smooth variety so I took a flyer on using a planer. Wow, I’m glad I did. Operation is straight forward and after a few test pieces I began planing the 4x4 cedar posts and a quantity of 6”x1”x96” boards. The high speed steel cutter blades lasted for about 10 or so boards (planed both sides), rotated them and did 10 more. Then I replaced the cutters (easy but takes time) with carbide blades and went on my way. I like how the necessary tools are attached right to the machine. Operation of the Wen planer is straight forward and self explanatory so even a newbie can start putting out good results. I also purchased two roller stands and spent some time making sure the boards went through straight, level and true. Result was no snipe which surprised me since many YT videos are how to prevent snipe. Setting up measurement and adjustment is straight forward and little effort. About 1/16” is most I would remove at one time and this worked out well for me. I also purchased the Wen planer stand which gives a solid base for the planer. As the photo shows the results were satisfying with only one pass. What was a collection of rough cut cedar boards and posts became a really attractive set of lumber that looks great. Well worth the money, even for this one project, and I recommend this planer. There will be more projects now that I see how great the results were. Now to get as excited to dig the post holes.