Thread: Cheap electric planer needed. Advise pls..

the ozito will do the job ok ...just bear in mind that cheap tools do have some limitations ....the ozito will work ok on soft woods like pine, meranti etc ......but you will probably find the blades dull quickly on the hardwoods like oak,ash, walnut etc ...I have several ozito brand in my shed , I use them once in a blue moon , which in all honesty is what they were designed for .....not commercial use ......so go for it

Originally Posted by manoftalent

the ozito will do the job ok ...just bear in mind that cheap tools do have some limitations ....the ozito will work ok on soft woods like pine, meranti etc ......but you will probably find the blades dull quickly on the hardwoods like oak,ash, walnut etc ...I have several ozito brand in my shed , I use them once in a blue moon , which in all honesty is what they were designed for .....not commercial use ......so go for it

Thanks!. I can't see myself using this on anything else but things like pine, meranti etc so I'm not too concerned. Sounds like the path to take. I'll drop buy and have a look around at bunnings tomorrow during late night shopping..

Cheers!

Originally Posted by montiee

I have a door frame which I'm putting architrave (sp?) around. Unfortunately the wall isn't level (nowhere near it) so I'm left with a gap that is 2cm deep at the bottom and ~0.5 cm at the top from the actual frame to the wall. I plan to pad it with some cheap pine.

I was thinking the easiest option would be to plane the timber down so I got a loan of a hand planer but it's tough going. I though about cutting the strip of timber down by hand but frankly my skills and patience is not up to the task. A bandsaw would be nice but can't stretch the budget. Next plan of attack was to go electric on the planer and take the effort out of it and it would have some uses in the future while renovating potentially.

I want something budget but which can still do the job reasonably well. Looking through the bunnings catalogue there is an ozito for $40. Anyone have any experience with this? It's not a tool I think I'll be using alot of so don't want to spend hundreds. Any recommendations other recommendations in the rock bottom pricing department.

how about a few tubes of no more gaps?

back up the space with the plastic backer rod and then just gun the goo in in two or three applications.
tool it flat to the architrave


ian

Originally Posted by ian

how about a few tubes of no more gaps?

back up the space with the plastic backer rod and then just gun the goo in in two or three applications.
tool it flat to the architrave

ian

I thought about doing that but when a gap becomes that large I've found that you are asking for hassles down the track with splitting/cracking as the house moves or when any major work is done causing vibration to the wall eg hammering/drilling.

Of course even if I went this route I'd need to cut the backer rod anyway to the slope, secure into place and at the same time provide some sort of support for the architrave to lean against as nails are hammered into it so it doesn't slant into the gap or buckle due to no support. The last point is the real issue.

I might be wrong but it just seemed more straighforward and economical to buy a bit of $4 pine and shape it with a planer and any minor imperfections due to my lack of skill can then be filled up with filler (hopefully just a small amount ).

If your really cutting 2 cm to .5 cm it's almost a saw job.

I had a good look over the power planes in bunnings the other weekend. Very much get what you pay for. Ozito have 2 models. A small one for $40 and a big one for $60. The foot on the dearer one is a lot better. Obviously more power, deeper cuts. The bosch equivalent to the $40 is $100. It's an obviously better machine, but 2.5 times better ?

Dunno. I came away not buying anything, but my purposes are different.

If I were doing what your doing I'd be looking for a cheap table saw...or even one of those toy band saws. If the taper is straight you can certainly cut it with great accuracy with a circular saw, fence and support stock. If you feel more confident with a planer so be it. If the ozito fails you can always return it.

I have a GMC electric planer that I bought at a closing down sale a while ago. It works well for the occasional use it gets. I have planed paint off old windows and done kwila on it without dramas. I even put it over a nail once with only a small notch in the blade - small enough that I still use it with those blades on. Mine isn't one of the current models.

Peter

Originally Posted by damian

If your really cutting 2 cm to .5 cm it's almost a saw job.

Yeh but after you put in a piece of pine which is 12mm thick to pad the gap the figures change to having to take off 7mm at the top and adding 8mm at the bottom (which in turn means planing 4mm off the bottom section of extra pine glued on) so I'm not really cutting 20mm of timber.

Personally I'd love a bandsaw but not enough $$ in the budget atm with all the renovating occuring so I'll try the cheapie planer option. Worse comes to worse I'm out of pocket $40-$60 and have something that will help me in the future anyway with odd jobs that require chamefering etc. I guess with 3 years warranty you can't go too wrong at that price.

Thanks for everyones help. I'll be heading off to bunnings soon.

I might be wrong, but ...

door openings are framed
door jams are nailed or screwed to the frame using wedges to get them plumb
architraves are then nailed to the jam

so there's no need to drive nails through the architrave into the wall.


I use a polyethelene backer rod (sold for use as a bond brteaker under paint on waterproofing membranes) which can be cut with a knife, roughly stuck in place with a dab of No More Gaps (multiple layers can be placed where necessary).
I leave an approximate square cross section to fill with NMG

The door I did this way 9 years ago shows no cracking (the door is on the 1st floor of a 110+ year old terrace which has 200mm joists where today's building code calls for 250mm — yes the floor has noticable bounce)


ian

Originally Posted by ian

I might be wrong, but ...

door openings are framed
door jams are nailed or screwed to the frame using wedges to get them plumb
architraves are then nailed to the jam

Well the architrave is ~80mm wide (rough figure). The door jambs are ~10mm wide. Now aside from the fact that my architrave is round nosed over that 10mm width a nail there isn't going to do much good and you run the risk of splitting the door jamb or the roundnose section more than likely because you are right on the edge of the board. Sure predrilling etc can minimse it but but the time you countersink the nail there isn't much wood holding onto it. You then have to worry about people leaning on the architrave with the nail edge acting like a pivot point and cracking should you flex the other end too much. It just sounds too unstable to hammer one extreme of the board with a nail and leave the other end just hanging on filler and un-nailed. If I'm going to nail on either side I'd just rather nail in the middle once. I guess nailing the architrave to the jamb would be ok if you had "thin" architrave so it didn't act like a longer lever.

Perhaps your place is different but none of my house has nails driven into the door jamb, rather the surrounding frame next to the door jamb. I naturally assumed that all places where like mine but I guess it depends on the style of door jamb and thickness of architrave chosen. Interesting nonetheless to hear of alternatives but I don't think it would work in my case.


BTW bought the $60 ozito over the smaller $40. I wish I could get the power and rebating depth in the smaller size but so be it. Came with a fence and 3 year warranty. The power switch seems really cheap, you'd think they could come up with something better for a dollar more :lol:. Plan to give it a spin tomorrow.

Just an update for anyone interested. The ozito (larger model) worked perfectly fine. So much easier than a hand plane and a hell of alot quicker.

With the fine adjustments I felt I had more control than the hand plane and a much nicer finish. Pretty happy with the planer. I actually packed away all the cords etc in the shed and realised I needed to do another strip. Tried it with the hand planer which was handy and instantly gave up knowing how much easier the electic planer is. I'm more than happy to wait till tomorrow to finish off the job with the electric version.

How long it will last is anyones guess but if I look at it objectively I could buy ~3 of these for one ryobi etc. Last one on the shelf at my bunnings. Don't think I need anymore for DYI jobs around the house. Wish it came with a bloody dust bag . Made a real mess in the driveway and it's windy today as well

I worked out that as long as you have a flat even surface the planer will keep it. It will also keep any slants that you have in the timer unless you manually correct it. Obvious but didn't realise. Lucky I picked that up in time though not quite easy to correct. Next time I'll plane down all the way rather than try to quickly cut off ~5 mm with a jigsaw which has the potential to skew a bit and then plane 1-2mm

I have 2 electric planes. The good one is a makita I got 10 years ago the other one is an XUI copy of the same makita and cost $29.00. I picked it up to clean up some recycled wood I had. I would not shed any tears if it came to grief in the process but it keeps on going. For a one off job any of the cheepies will do. An electric plane is for rough work in any case. Decide if you want it to last or not and compare costs. New blades are in the $20.00 range so a $30-40 plane is a throw away.

I bought the bosch pho1 which is going for $99 at your friendly green hardware store at the moment. I coulda got a cheaper ozito i guess but the bosch is a nice lil unit. It's attacked 80yr old hardwood studs with relish and has nice adjustment for depth (0-1.5mm). I dunno if it's 2.5 times better than the ozito but it's doing the job for me and since it will get plenty of use in the future I'm hoping the extra few dollars will buy a bit of longevity in lifespan.

The only thing I love more than my bosch planer at the moment is my new makita circular saw (mgk5007).

Originally Posted by montiee

Just an update for anyone interested. The ozito (larger model) worked perfectly fine. So much easier than a hand plane and a hell of alot quicker.

With the fine adjustments I felt I had more control than the hand plane and a much nicer finish.
How long it will last is anyones guess but if I look at it objectively I could buy ~3 of these for one ryobi etc. Last one on the shelf at my bunnings. Don't think I need anymore for DYI jobs around the house. Wish it came with a bloody dust bag . Made a real mess in the driveway and it's windy today as well

Hi, I have one on those Ozito planers and I use mine for cleaning up recycled timber as well as trimming the house doors to size. Its not a bad tool and leaves an ok finish but certainly the finish is not up to hand plane standard. I think if you found that the handplane gave you a worse finish it just means that the latter wasnt tuned/sharpened properly. If you are having troubles with the wood chips, once hooked up to a vac, there is essentially no dust that escapes. This is handy when working inside the house.

regards

Marios

I too am looking to buy one, any one had their ozito more than a few years


I found with other ozito tools- like my old cordless screw driver and anglegrinder gave out about the same time as the warrantty, I did give them a hell of a workout and last time I went better quality knowing how much i would use them.

I mostly want it to take the effort out of planing

So i'm not sure whether to get the better planner - the ryobi had a rebate option that sound like i might use

should i hang the expence and the makita
and will a $300 planer do any better job than the ozito
and will any of them work on hardwood

so many questions
Ant