How vital is a planer?

[junquecol]

Thanks for all the good feedback. I'm now leaning towards ignoring my arbitrarily chosen tool budget and buying the quality tools I'll need in a year or so, instead of entry level ones. It's a lot cheaper in the long run to skip past tools that are purchased with the expectation of upgrading shortly after. I also have really bad luck with selling things on craigslist.

As they say on Family Feud, GOOD ANSWER!

 

[SubGuy]

I may be late to the conversation, but I love my Dewalt 735 (craigslist $340 pretty much brand new0. I have a Wixley Digital Height gauge (got it for around $50), and infeed and outfeed tables (dewalt ones) and love it. I've put more use into the planer than anything other than my table saw.

 

[kooshball]

Rather than buying nothing now you might want to consider is the relatively low cost of buying used, using for a year or two then reselling into what you want. Most of my tools (except table saw) were bought used for around 1/2 the price of new but were in like-new condition. Some other tools were bought new (bandsaw and drill-press) when Lowe's was clearing them out for 70% off. With all of these tools I was able to build a queen size bed for my house and am now working on a dresser to match.

The table saw was bought as a keeper as it is too big and has too many custom jigs to "trade" often but the rest of the stuff will be sold and upgraded over time. I can almost guarantee that I will get 50% - 80% (or more) out of the tools when I sell them and if you average that out over a few years the cost to use these tools is actually pretty cheap (at least that is what I tell my wife).