Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Being a part-time tool designer for woodturning, and a former machinist, I appreciate good tools & designs. I've used the 735 with a friend making various woodworking projects. The DeWalt 735 looked like a great design, with innovative vacuum-assist using the planer knives for an impeller-like suction. But shortly into the project, the knives quickly showed wear and the planer made much more noise than it did when the blades were untouched by the softwood we were planing. I've done a lot of planing, and have owned other brands of machines & knew there were serious problems with these blades. When I inspected the blades, I immediately noticed they were very thin with too much backrake in the edge, which probably caused premature breakage due to unsupported steel at the cutting edge. There is the probability of setting up vibrations in the thin metal further causing additional stresses on the steel, and may be a reason the machine is much louder than other brands of planers (try taking a razor blade and hack away at hardwood and see what happens.). Shortly after that, the sproket in the drive system broke. Another closer inspection revealed a very weak, low density casting with poor mechanical design & strength, especially where the keyway was broached into the already weak metal. A second replacement sproket broke in the same place, relative to the first one, further indicating a design flaw, and another set of knives went dull prematurely ( I was hoping that the first set of knives had a metallurgical flaw, were embrittled, or some other fluke). I measured the depth of cut on the 6" wide softwood board, and it was only .050" ---less than 1/16"!! There is no easy way to re-machine the knife holder to accept better knives, say from a Makita or other brand of machine. Maybe DeWalt subbed part of this machine out to a company named "Rejects "R" Us" but this machine is past it's warranty and will be sold "as is" which is an "as is" piece of junk. But if you want a noisy dust collector booster, this machine will work well, just don't plane anything harder than fresh marshmallows on it. It's truly sad that with all the other great features on this machine, and DeWalt's great reputation with the predecessor to the 735, a lack of attention to the two most important functions of the machine (cutting wood, and feeding the wood through the planer) were neglected. The local customer service was poor, at best. Get this planer a better knife design, forged steel sproket, acoustic damping (it's really loud) and this DeWalt will be as good as the Hitachi or Makita.