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Product Ranking

The Delta TP400LS is second among 22 in the 12-13" Planers analysis ladder. It is 3rd among 130 in the Planers category. The average price of Planers is $2196.35 and the TP400LS is 15th in price. It is 6th in 12-13" Planers at $373.24. It is the 4th ranked product among 108 in the Delta brand.

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Find more information on Delta products here. www.deltamachinery.com, the manufacturer's site, is a source for manuals, parts, and other information.

grade A
WHAT'S THIS?

Rated Top Value
Wood Magazine, Volume 148, 2003-05

The reviewer rated this portable planer Top Value due to its combination of acceptable performance and extra features that are free. The cutting performance was not among the best tested, however. The free extras mentioned are a universal leg stand, an extra set of knives, onboard storage for knife-changing tools, and a long L-shaped wrench for adjusting screws for changing the knives. One extra feature that is not free, however, is the dust collection hood, which costs an extra $15.

I don't have a lot of experience with other planers. I also own a very old Jet 15" planer, so my experience is limited to these two machines, which is probably enough experience to review this one.

Unpacking and Assembly

Unpacking and assembly is simple. There are a few parts to attach: the crank handle and the top cover. Also, the long hex wrench and blade holder included with the unit must be stowed. Each has its own place on the planer body and under the bed extension.

The bed extensions then must be adjusted. I found it much easier to place the planer on a table, closer to eye level, before attempting to adjust the bed extensions.

My bed extensions did need adjustment. Don't trust the factory adjustments. It only takes a few minutes and was very easy to do. They simply need to be level with the bed and that's it.... very easy.

My next move was going to be adjusting the knives; however, I found that the knives are indexed and are not adjustable. I'm liking this machine already!

I went a step further and attempted to make sure that the cutter head and motor assembly was even with the bed on all four corners. I couldn't really find a good place to measure accurately, but it appeared to be good. The final test will be comparing the thickness between the left and right side of a piece of stock after running it through. I'll get to that in a bit.

First Impression

I wanted a small, portable planer for smaller tasks. My Jet 15" planer is very big and weighs over two hundred pounds. The Delta is heavier than it looks, but not so heavy that moving it around is cumbersome. I love the concept of a portable planer. I can easily store it on a shelf and move it wherever I wish. I can position it so the chips shoot out the back door of the shop or even take it outside.

The Delta is the perfect machine for me. It's lighter than some of the other popular models in its class, and the price is certainly right, too.

My first impression is good. Time to fire it up!

Operation

Being a small, portable machine, my only concern was whether or not it could actually plane wood with an acceptable result. The answer is yes.

The first thing to go through it was a piece of 2X6 pine. The result was smooth, as expected. I only removed about an 1/16th of an inch from the 2X6 so I cranked it up and removed a bit more. The result was about the same. I did not notice any slow down in the motor and the rollers pulled the wood right on through.

Time to try some oak. I have a bunch of rough white and red oak that was given to me (I'm a lucky guy). White oak is notoriously hard so I started with red oak (still very hard wood).

I flattened one side of a 6" wide piece of red oak that was about 5 feet long on the jointer. I adjusted the unit to remove about a 1/16th and ran it through. No problem.

I did the same with a comparable piece of white oak and still no problem.

I adjusted the planer to remove about an 1/8th and tried again. It went through with no problems, but I could tell that I was close to the limits with this machine.

I'm not going to try to remove any more than that. I think it could do it, but I'm quite happy with that result. I seldom remove more than that in one pass with my Jet 15", so it would be unfair to try to do it on the Delta. I don't want to break the poor thing. I like it too much already.

Quality

Time to talk about snipe. Before I go any further let me say that snipe is common from my experience. I know that people get snipe with other planers to varying degrees and a certain amount is expected.

I get about 2 to 3 inches of snipe on the leading end of a piece of stock and sometimes a little snipe (1/2" or so) at the trailing end. The snipe is worse when removing more stock. I see less snipe when removing small amounts of 1/16th or less.

To amuse myself and out of curiosity, I milled a piece of 3/4" stock to 1/2" and did it in about 5 or 6 passes only removing tiny bits at a time. The results were much better and quite acceptable to me.

I get similar results with my Jet. Only with the Jet I have to run much longer boards through. Short boards would get lost under the rollers and cutter head making for a stupidly dangerous situation. I like the Delta because I can run much smaller pieces through safely and I can mill down to 1/8" thicknesses. I think my Jet will only go to 1/4". The owner's manual contains the specifics about minimum sizes, etc.

Final Impression

There is snipe, but everyone gets varying degrees of snipe with planers. Take smaller passes to minimize snipe. You'll never get rid of it completely, but you can minimize it. Always allow a few inches of waste no matter whose planer you're using.

Buy some calipers. while the measuring gauge is easy to read and the indicator is close enough to make it reasonably accurate, there is no lock for milling several boards the same thickness. The best approach (I follow this approach even with a lock on my Jet) is to run each board through one after the other then adjust the height and run them all through again. Repeat this until all the boards are planed to final thickness. Don't run one board for several passes to your final thickness and start on the next board. You'll never get them exactly the same thickness. This might not be a big deal for some projects, but for most you'll want your stock to be exactly the same thickness.

Knife changing is really easy on this machine. I have to adjust my knives on my Jet planer and it's not an easy task. The Delta has indexes that lock the knives into the exact location. The knives are also double sided. This means that when your knives get dull (you'll easily know when it's time: tear-out; bogging down) you can simply flip them end-for-end and put them back in. It's also important to know that you do not need to remove the bolts - only loosen them. There are springs behind the bolts that push the knife holders away from the knives so you can pluck them out. Delta provides a magnetic blade holder to help keep you from cutting yourself. The tool is not necessary and does nothing for aligning the knives, Delta was simply thoughtful and cared enough about your soft, pink, little fingers to provide you with this little magnetic doodad.

The knives are disposable and reasonably inexpensive. This is truly a great feature. Expensive knives are, well, expensive and finding a good sharpening shop is not always easy. I don't think you could sharpen the knives in this unit since they are indexed. I believe the sharpener would have to get them exactly the same and I'm not sure they could do the double edge thing either. But, as I said, they are cheap anyway and there are only two, which are sold as a pair - still cheap.

I've been using this unit for a few months now and find myself using it more than my big Jet planer. My jointer is only 6" so there is seldom a time when I need a 15" planer. I think that anyone who needs a planer would be happy with this unit. You could get more power and more features that you probably don't need. Even with a big planer you will get snipe if you take lots of material off in one pass. Sure, it's nice to take off 1/4" then make a finish pass of 1/32" and be done with it. Unless you are making big bucks selling handcrafted furniture out of your garage time is NOT money. Time is for enjoying yourself and your hobby and the Delta will be your little buddy to spend your happy time with you.

There are times when the big planer is necessary and I am not getting rid of it. The Delta is small and should be used for small stuff. Take off small amounts of stock and keep it clean and it will be a good little planer. A tool like this one did not even exist 20 years ago. We're lucky that we can even get portable planers and even luckier that they are cheaper than a collection of good hand planes.

Priceless Trick of the trade

I thought I might share a tip with you about jointers and planers. As I mention above, my jointer is only 6". Bigger jointers cost very big bucks. So why own a 12" (or larger) planer when you can only afford a 6" jointer? That's what I'm about to share with you.

Most of the time you can rip your wide boards to 6" and run them through the jointer then the planer and, if you were smart and kept them in order, you can edge glue them back together and the seam is hardly noticeable. However, this takes a lot of time away from the project and it's hard to edge glue perfectly - even with a biscuit jointer - and you'll end up scraping and sanding trying to get the seams level.

If you don't want to waste time or have that perfect piece of finely figured stock and ripping and edge gluing is not in the cards you can use your planer as a jointer.

To do this you'll need a piggy-back board (sorry, I made up that name). A piggy-back board is a perfectly flat and straight board that's exactly as wide as your planer and at least as long as the stock you want to face. This board should be quite thick and very stable. A large piece of hard maple would be perfect. You can make one by using the edge glue technique, if you're good at it, or pay someone with a large jointer to make one for you. What you do then is piggy back your too-wide-for-the-jointer-rough-cut board on top of your perfectly flat and true piggy-back board and run it through the planer. Make sure it can't wobble and fill any large voids between the two boards with little wood shims so it can't be compressed to the piggy-back board by the rollers. You could use hot glue or double stick tape, or whatever. The important thing is that it can't move or be compressed by the rollers.

Once you have one good side it's as simple as separating your board from the piggy-back board, turning it over and running the opposite side through the planer. Now you have a perfectly flat and true board that was too wide for that little 6" jointer, but no problem for your 12" planer.

Have fun!

After some consideration, I bought this planer last summer. It was on sale through Amazon at the time for about $275 delivered. Since that also included a spare set of knives, it was a hard deal to... (More)

I picked this planer up for about $270 with free shipping. For the price and low to moderate usage, it can't be beat. Relatively little snipe. I have had trouble on occassion with feeding, but it has... (More)

Do not buy the Delta TP400LS 12 1/2" thickness planer. If only it would feed. If it would feed, it would be a great product. My TP400LS worked well for about four months (low useage,... (More)