WEN 6530 6-Amp Electric Hand Planer, 3-1/4-Inch

During a reno of a vintage 1900s property struggled about the trim. Back in the day the varnish used had the lead. The next coat was an oil-based paint in I'm guessing the 1960’s possibly. But, it's the thick lead hide paint that disgusts me. You include the decorative top trim is removed in most of the house. Plus, some of the wood is damaged. Trim is an exceptionally expensive change. One, protect from lead. And, how to improve the paint or replace it. Until now felt stuck for a few years. Bought this planer for me for Christmas. After a door debacle thought this would solve the straight surface issue easy peasy. Upon pulling off a piece of trim along the floor. Yea know, the seven inch high with a curve at the top. Typically including a separate decorative trim piece above. Looking at the back of the trim noticed a 1/16 of an inch plane one inch from the bottom and top perfectly through the middle along the entire board. Suddenly, this idea. If I plane those two areas then buff the entire board I’ll have the original wood. It's never been touched by varnish. If I cut the top curved inch off could add a new piece of trim to the top for decorative reasons. Like, in the movie Moster in law the living room has 1x2 inch painted black trim tacked on above the bottom wider trim tracing everything from the base board to around the door. Or, I could leave the dip to keep the board a full seven inches wide and still add a topper trim piece. The dip in the back could be helpful for cords that run along the wall sometimes for older homes. Instead of buying those plastic paintable holders. Anyway, with this planer, I can restore all the trim in the house. Making the projects go exponentially faster. Rather than use a heat gun and deal with all that. I’ll do a hand rub poly to bring out the wood. There are so many products today that weren't invented back then to help accentuate wood. It’s weird there is a gap in the back. Could have been for airflow perhaps. I didn't research the reason of why they took time to plane each board through the middle. Anyway, restoring boards from the late 1890’s to be used for one of the oldest houses in this neighborhood is like one of the coolest things ever, too me. I’m redoing the office for the practice first, so I should see the results by next week when I get to the trim. Super happy to have this planer and help to transform projects like the trim into works of art ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💯

I just completely my first project with this planer. It took me a few practice cut to get my cut motion right (see the huge snipe on the left side of my 2x6) but once I got a few test cuts under my belt I was able to get smooth consistent cuts (see right side of the 2x6). Even at 1/64” it smooths the board nicely, it is a lot quicker than sanding these rough boards. The tool itself is all plastic. It feels solid enough for a small jobs using softwoods but it doesn’t feel like it can handle really demanding jobs or hardwoods. One other note: the bag extends pretty far, make sure you have cleared the track before starting a cut

Love this planer! My Chicago Electric from 12+ years ago gave up the ghost. This one is a near duplicate of the other with two minor differences, one good and another not so much. The plus is the little kickstand which holds the blade off the surface where you set it down. The only negative I found is the safety on the switch is only on one side. Right-handed it works fine, but with the left hand the safety is really awkward. That’s why 4 stars. For the money it’s a good tool. I used it to removed the saw cuts on exposed framing on my pressure treated boathouse roof and it worked great!

these are great inexpensive planers I already own one but I'm doing a job on a house all the new doors are an 1/8 narrow so I hAve to plane them down I usually buy mKita products but I don't want to spend $300 for one .

I think this item has done super good and I'm not a chatbot or a paid person. I'm just a normal person that bought it and I used it probably about five or six times and I've been using it on White oak and it done great. Couldn't ask for better matter of fact

I originally ordered the smaller Wen planer but returned it to get this one. I’m very happy with this tool. I hook the bag up to the far side and use my shop vac’s straight tube in the near side dust port. It slides into it. I wrap the tube to the port with aluminum tape so that it’s in far enough to stay there. The tube can still be removed from the port after use and reused with the same aluminum tape. Just squeeze the tape against the tube. Take time to watch “The shipwright’s” YouTube on setting up a Ryobi planer. I notched the blades as he advises when I saw that the blade extending from the edges of the shoes cut a groove in the board I was working on. I used a diamond burr in my rotary tool to cut 45 degree notches at all four corners of each blade. I aligned the blades first by backing off on the hex head set screws till they were flush with the back of the blade housing then turned each 21/2 turns. Then I sighted down the back shoe and adjusted each blade so that it was level. I took his advice and threw away the wrench that came with the planer and used a 5/16 wrench on the blades. I forgot to say that the reason I put the dust bag on the opposite (closed) side is because you still get shavings out that side when in use. Even with that a small amount of shavings still come out that side. I haven’t removed the shoe as the shipwright does nor have I balanced the blades. I have some work to do to get up to speed on this tool. Im gouging the board at the beginning of the cut and am not keeping it square on the edges so I put the fence on the tool. Don’t be too aggressive. The vac tube can be removed from the dust port without having to remove the aluminum tape so if you don’t crimp it, it’s reusable. It also serves as a handle. Enjoy! Kevin in North Carolina

Nice finish with the unit easy to handle

I’m not sure I used this as designed but it eats wood! I am renovating an old house and some old window frames were sticking out past the drywall which replaced old plaster and lath. The old window frames will be cased with new trim so precision wasn’t a concern. I’ve never used a planer, didn’t read the directions, no idea what the extra parts in the box do, and really had no idea how to use it. I plugged it in and messed with the knobs and based on simple logic set to the maximum removal setting. Pulled the trigger and bingo! I had wood chips flying out of this thing as I didn’t bother to put the collection bag on. This thing trimmed 3 door frames in about 10 minutes and made a massive pile of 100 year old wood chips. Put it back in the box and put it on the shelf. Maybe I’ll use it again, maybe not but either way I got my $39.00 worth! If you’re looking at it just buy it. If I didn’t break it you won’t! Nails didn’t seem to bother it either. Ate those off too!