Benchtop Planers

In this week's podcast: cabinets, hot water heaters, deck finishing, and pegboard vs slat-wall.

The Grizzly G0663 is an economically-priced, entry-level portable thickness planer that is functional enough for professionals

The Craftsman 21759 is among the heaviest and largest of the portable thickness planers. It has an accurate digital depth readout and features an oversized paddle switch, removable lock, and nice dust-collection system

The Ridgid R4330 portable thickness planer could be referred to as a hybrid: it has many of the features found on heavy-duty machines but is almost as light as the smaller models

The DeWalt DW735 is a compact portable thickness planer with all the features you need in a planer, and if you don't mind it's weight, it is as good job-site use as it is for the small production shop

The Steel City 40200 portable thickness planer has positives and negatives but once the bugs are worked out on this newly released model, this planer could be a contender

the Ryobi AP1301 portable thickness planer makes smooth surfaces with minor chatter markes and has a nice price tag but the features indicate this model is for hobbyists and the engineering needs improvement

The Makita 2012NB is compact and portable without the flashy features of many in its class of board-surfacing tools

An expert gives you a look under the hood and shows you how to change the blade of our tool test's "best overall"

John White demonstrates his simple method for changing planer blades