DeWalt DW734 Planer

The DeWalt DW734 is a benchtop planer (also called lunchbox planer), and the successor of the DeWalt DW733. The main upgrade is that it has three disposable knives instead of two resharpenable ones. This leads to a slightly better cut quality.

Another advantage of the disposable knives is that they are two-sided, and that they automatically set in the correct position. Resharpenable blades are not always the same size and therefore always need to be manually adjusted, which can cost a lot of time. Replacement blades are however more expensive than resharpening.

Reduced snipe

One of the biggest downsides of lunchbox planers is that they tend to have a lot of snipe. DeWalt has tried to minimize this by making the infeed and outfeed table’s height adjustable. Also, they’ve added a clamp to force the cutterhead to stay into position.

The reduced snipe, combined with the three blades instead of the standard two, makes the DW734 a good planer for finishing, and it gets better looking results than most other lunchbox planers.

Dust collection

Although the dust collection has been improved over the DW733, it suffers from the same problem that wood chips can get stuck in the corner. This means you have to remove it all the bolts entirely and clean it regularly. This is probably why on the newer DW735, DeWalt chose to add an extra blower to spit out the wood chips.