Hand vs Eletric planner advice

mashed13

Hey first time poster here,

So I do a bit of woodworking on the side lately(at least i'm trying...) I have a yard full of wooden pallets I've made piece or two from them already, but sanding them with the sander is a hell of a job to get surface smooth enough....
I looked around at buying planer which should help me a lot either electrical or manual, never really used any of them tho. In most forums they advice to get hand planer which might be good, but considering that I would need to take off quite a bit of material from pallet wood electric planer would be much quicker and easier...
Any advice? Also I forgot to mention that things like thicknesser is out of conversation as I want to keep my budget fairly low, and the space is tight.

Thanks in advance, if you bought or used any planers recently feel free to recommend

magicbastarder

as per this video, electric planers are for getting through wood quickly - so sounds like it may be OK for you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQw0jCID0bg

recipio

They take the hard work out of planing timber certainly but there are a few pitfalls. You will never get the accuracy of a thicknesser, they are limited to about a 3-4" wide cut and they need a bit of practice to make square passes. They also make a terrible mess - sawdust everywhere.If you do buy one make sure it has disposable blades. There is not much difference between a top end electric planer and a bottom end worktop thicknesser - I'd go for the latter.

imakebiodiesel

Using pallets for woodworking material is a great idea, its easy on the pocket and easy on the environment but preparing can be frustrating. They ofetn have sand cement and other grit like materials and nails embeded in the fibres that will quickly blunt a sharp blade. I would recommend a basic electric planer and buy half a dozen spare blades. Use the electric planer to get then down to close to the final dimensions and then if you feel the need, finish with a hand plane. The planes I use for this purpose are the Stanley RB10 and the RB5. they have replaceable blades that cost about €1 each so if you hit a nail or piece of buried grit its not the end of the word. Purists are a bit snooty about these planes but I find they work very well.

mashed13

Thanks for all the answers, I think I'll be getting electric for now we'll see how it goes and as imakebiodiesel suggested use electric first and hand plane for finishing. They actually do have a few nice deals on amazon like black + decker for 50£ with really nice reviews I'll get back to you with updates how it goes

magicbastarder

just make sure you can easily get replacement blades for it, i suspect would be good advice.

imakebiodiesel

The secret to using a basic inexpensive electric planer is to set the depth of cut to make light cuts. it will take a few more passes but the machine will not be stressed. Also organize your work so that you plane a couple of boards, then do some sawing or other operation and then back to planing. These machines are not built to do heavy work all day long.
Nearly all these planers use 82mm blades and a pack of 10 cost £15 from Amazon.
The Stanley RB 10 and RB5 blades are a stock Stanley item and again Amazon sell a pack of 5 blades for £ 3.36.
At that price it wont hurt so much when you hit that nail you didnt see when preparing the boards.

my3cents

+1 on the Stanley RB10 plane excellent tool I have two one for best (actually one is a Paramo but same thing) and one I use for really crap work like taking paint of door jambs. Don't think you'll get one anywhere in Ireland but you'll find them on ebay. The rebate stop is a handy addition if you can find one.

For a reasonable finish without too much work I run timber slowly through a bench saw with a decent blade on it and then finish with a hand plane.

The RB5 on the other hand is a horrible piece of junk.

imakebiodiesel

The Paramo version is slightly better than the Stanley and the wooden handles feel better to0 but I dont think they are in production anymore.
In defence of the RB5 it will never do the job of a decent block plane but its handy in bullnose mode for getting onto awkward spaces that a larger plane cant. I keep one in my tool box for when I dont want to risk using my Veritas low angle block plane.