2012NB Portable Thickness Planer Review
The Makita 2012NB is compact and portable without the flashy features of many in its class of board-surfacing tools
With only a 12-in. blade, this tool is the best of the small models. It’s not big on flashy features, but it’s the most compact and portable, and the only model ready to use right out of the box. In fact, without making any adjustments to the scale before my initial test, I set the cutting depth at 1⁄4 in., and the resulting thickness measured 0.250 in. with a digital caliper. The plastic covered, gear-driven depth adjustment allows for precise fine-tuning, though one turn equals 5⁄64 in. on this machine, unlike 1⁄16 in. on all the others. The tapemeasure depth gauge is standard fare; the simple drop-down depth stop made it easy to achieve repeatable thicknesses. The paddle switch has a removable safety lock that snaps into place, but it loosened while running the machine (maybe that’s why Makita includes an extra). The factory-set 9-in. extension tables are solid and produce an overall bed length of 30 in. Infeed and outfeed snipe were equal to the other tools, but the surfaced boards were otherwise free of noticeable chatter marks. A shorter nut driver would make blade-changing a bit easier because the one provided hits the motor housing.
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