Simple Planer Question???

[spacebluesonoma]

As usual the simple things confuse me. Finally got around to setting up and playing with my thickness planer I got for Christmas. The weather has been cooperating and my back felt pretty good (all things considered) so out to the garage. I have the Dewalt 734. Surprisingly this thing seemed to be ready to go out of the box. (first power tool i have had that had done that) One feature on here confuses me and the manual does not clearly explain it (to me) so i figured I would come where no one laughs at my questions (at least publically:) and i get good advice. There is something called a "turret stop" and it has 0, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 settings. what exactly does this do??

Also tis thing seems to be able to handle removing more wood on one pass than the jointer, is that a good practice or should one take several thin passes as one usually does on the jointer?

Thanks All

[imported_wbrooks]

The turret depth stop allows you to plane two or more pieces of wood to the same thickness on different batch runs. Normally we run all our wood for a project through the planer at the same time until the required thickness is reached. With the turret depth stop set at a final thickness of say 3/4" you can start with say 4/4 material and always end up at the same 3/4" thickness without constantly checking to see if you have reached the desired 3/4" thickness. Once you reach 3/4" the turret will stop turning. I would test this in practice a few time before I trusted it.

The max depth of cut on a planer is 1/8" and the machine will struggle on 12" wide hardwood boards at that depth. Lighter passes is more desireable for a finer finish. I always make the last few passes very fine about 1/4 crank of the handle. Same theory applies to the jointer but it can take 1/8" without breaking a sweat on the full 6" wide hardwood board.

[spacebluesonoma]

Ahh

so basically set the turret stop to whatever I want my final thickness to be. that will prevent the blades from cutting any deeper.

See why didn't the instruction manual just say that???LOL