Power planers are very useful tools in certain situations. They make it easy to reduce the width of a door, or put a bevel on a door so it clears the jamb. In rough construction, use one of these to straighten the edges of 2x4s so drywall will lie flat.
Though these tools have the same basic mechanical configuration as a hand plane, don't expect them to do the same thing. You can't straighten an unstraight edge with a power plane like you can with jointer plane. Nor can you smooth a large surface as you can with a smoothing plane. But, you can clean up a rough face to see what the wood underneath looks like as you would with a jack or scrub plane. And no handplane will remove material as fast as one of these little power wonders.
If you only plan to use it a little, get an inexpensive one. They work great (when the blades are sharp!), even if they don't have much guts to them. Get a better one only if you know you will use it a lot.
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Black & Decker 3-1/4" Planer
Inexpensive alternative.
Porter-Cable 9125 3-1/4" Power Plane Kit
More substantial, professional unit.
More Power Planes
See Amazon.com's larger selection of power planes by clicking here.
