Power Feed Hand Planer

[Cypress Man]

Hello everyone,

I currently use a 12 1/4" Makita hand planer to plane large beams cut on my sawmill.  If you only have 1 or 2 to do its not to bad, but if you do any volume its a killer.  I was wondering if anyone has ever used a Hunter power feed hand planner as seen at   www.huntertimberframe.com    Is it actually worth selling the Makita and triing it or not?

                                                                                                                             Thanks,  Cypress Man

[WIwoodworker]

That's a very slick planer Cypress Man. I haven't seen one in person but that video from their website was pretty cool. The obvious advantage is that it does the work for you without having to move the beam or break your back.

I've added it to my list of "Tools I'd like to have but probably don't have a need for."

If you end up getting one make sure you let the rest of us know how well it works.

[solidwoods]

Maybe temporary mount your planer to your mill.
jim

[Cypress Man]

Maybe temporary mount your planer to your mill.
jim

I've actually thought about triing to mount it to the board return bracket on my LT40 but havent gotten around to it.  Has anyone ever tried this?  If so how did it work out?  I'd hate to destroy such an expensive hand planner.

                                                                                                                        Cypress Man

[Don P]

That's what I was looking at. Are you sure its an expensive planer? The guts look like a lunchbox 12" planer. Are they simply taking one of those apart, mounting to a plate, using the cutterhead and putting the rubber bands on the feed rollers?

[thedeeredude]

You could probably make one of your own with a little ingenuity.  It looks as Don said like they took apart a 12" planer and stuck it to a plate with feed rollers.  I imagine if you had a machine shop make the plate you could get it way less than 1900 bucks.  Those delta 121/2" planers are 200 at the box stores. 

[Cypress Man]

Are you sure its an expensive planer? The guts look like a lunchbox 12" planer. c

Yes.  The Makita 12 1/4" planner cost close to $2,000.00.  It might not be much money to some people but you sure have to plane a lot of beams to get your money back. 

                                                                                                                                  Cypress Man

[Don P]

I was talking about the Hunter. 2 grand is BIG money in my house  :D.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

It seems like using one of the lesser planers to disassemble
and play with wouldn't be a bad experiment, rather than
fooling around with the expensive Makita.

Phil L.