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I am sorry... but after having used a decent hand plane I feel nervous using the Wagner Safe T Planer. There are virtually no chance of kickbacks or injuries (unless you're just stupid) using a hand plane. Sure it takes some skill to plane an accurate surface but by the time I am done setting up the Safe T Planer, I could have used the time to learn how to use a hand plane correctly.

A band saw, as dangerous as they might seem, makes me far less nervous than turning on a drill press with the safe T planer on the chuck...

I might think about selling it and spending that money towards a low angle block plane (which I can use to true headstock backs)

Now I just need some toothed blade for my jack plane and I can thickness all plates and sides by hand...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I agree, that thing always looked like an accident waiting to happen, so I never bought one. I'm thinking about building a drum sander since hand planes are a lot of work, but I am still improving in my sharpening abilities so maybe it will get easier. Especially if I buy more blades so I can sharpen them in batches and swap out quickly.

Making toothed blades is pretty easy with a dremel cutoff wheel. Just make sure to keep the blade cool so you don't mess up the temper.

Oh, and get a good quality scraper. I just bought the Veritas scraper holder, which also comes with a scraper that can pull material way faster than my old one (especially if used without the holder )

I used one 1 time I think it is in a landfill somewhere

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Off to ebay to sell this thing to the next sucker....

Hand planing is a lot of work but with good planes, I was able to get result and a good workout...

I do wish I have space for a thickness sander though, but I seriously can't justify it unless I have some volume... and that's not likely in Taiwan.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I like mine okay, it's good for situations where you can't really use a handplane as well, like tapering the back of the neck shaft or bringing headstock to thickness (not impossible with a plane, I know). I do think they overplay the safety aspect of it. I feel okay with it now that I have a better handle on how to feed wood into it. I hated it when I was still figuring that out.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I have 5 of them and love them all....like any cutting tool you need to know how to keep them sharp and how to set up properly and they are fine..that's why I am happy 5 of the buggers, always a fresh one ready to go and I find them very quick and easy to use in a drill press, they most certainly leave a hand plane for dead when it comes to high figured or cranky wood or when levelling out any last uneven slices from billets after a resaw session. Simply place the flat side down and buzz off the high points with the Wagner. Then just skip clean in the drum sander and your good to go...great tool IMHO...BTW the real reason I have 5 is because I picked up two of them as part of a 2nd hand bundle box. I was happy with three but I am not complaining because I sharpening sessions are less frequent.

Cheers

Kim

They are great for certain tasks. I use them to thickness headstocks and do that with the headstock in a machine vise mounted in a cross-feed table on the drill press. I do free-hand for cutting the perimeter of mandolin tops and backs, to get the outside edge level and to an exact thickness. That needs to be done in multiple cuts anyway so I just don't take too much at a time and use care and no long-sleeved shirt. If you keep ti sharp and run it at a relatively high speed it cuts pretty smoothly w/o grabbing or kickback. Slower speed = danger.

Alan D.

I've bought two over the years; the second when the cutters on the first one got down to where they could barely be sharpened any more. The first one had worked fine for a long time, but the second one had proplems with kicking stuff around the shop. The cutters were rotating in use, so they were not all cutting the same.

The problem turned out to be fairly simple to fix, although it took a few hours. The bottoms of the cutter pockets in the body casting were slightly uneven, and the cutters themselves had not been ground flat after they were hardened, so they were still slightly warped. The uneven cutters resting on an uneven surface would naturally want to go to a preferred orientation, and that was unually not the one that left the edges properly aligned.

The solution was to scrape the bottoms of the pockets smooth and flat with a chisel, and lap the cutters down so they had level faces. That latter took a while on a diamond stone, but once done the tool has not given any further problems. I'll note that this is no worse in that sense than most hand planes you'll buy, which have to be regarded as kits that can be turned into a decent tool with some work.

I've taught a lot of students to use the safety planer. Some have had run-ins with it, generally caused by inattention. It finally dawned on me what the 'secret' is: never have your finger tips pointing toward the tool. Since I started telling people that no-one has been bitten.

Calling any power tool 'safe' is more than a bit of a stretch, but the Wagner planer is not bad as power tools go. Keep it sharp, make sure the table is perpendicular to the quill, don't take too heavy a cut, watch your fingers, and see that it is set up right in the first place, and you should be fine. I don't know how I'd work without mine.

Have them, use them and they are a good tool for several things in the process. For a short period of time used for thinning back, sides and tops.

Only problem as far as injury was my fault. Thing was running to thin headstock and someone walking by house said something to me and I looked up and safe T planed my finger. Lucky the guy is an ER doc I play golf and fish with. Looked and felt worse than actual injury turned out to be.

Same finger now messed up being stupid with the table saw. When will I learn that when that inner voice is saying don't do that, not to do it anyway. After a recent several stays in hospital for heart stuff and on Plavix, a lot of blood and hurt like heck, but getting better.

Shop advice: Listen to the little inner voice and make sure to have neosporin at the house/shop. But like Al said, most injuries are not paying attention and being stupid.

I use mine for thicknessing and tapering headstocks and necks and roughing out the plates for archtops in a step fashion. Great tool when used with care.

I have one.. don't use it much, but it works fine for what it does.

I treat every power tool like it wants to kill me (or at least eat my fingers). So far I haven't been injured (knock on rosewood).

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Jim Hansen

A friend of mine bought one and after I expressed some skepticism, he proceeded to do a quick demonstration that consisted of throwing a piece of wood across the shop and nearly catching a finger in the process.

Not the tool's fault but I think it could use a different name. After all, a real planer may be the safest power tool in the shop.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

It's a very worthwhile tool. It must be sharp. It must be operated over a LEVEL table (they have instructions packed with every unit showing you how to make a feeler gauge to level your table), and it must be operated at the appropriate speed, which is faster than I normally operate my drill press, but I learned that the hard way. Most importantly, it must be used for relatively light cuts...a little bit at a time. Respect it as you would any other sharp tool revolving at high speed, but don't fear it. Wear your customary eye protection, whenever possible use fences to obviate grabs and kick backs, be mindful of your feed direction with regard to the revolution of the cutting head and your fence, keep your hands out of the path of the tool, and go forward cautiously, but don't freak out. It's a very useful tool. But it isn't smart enough to overcome operator error. You need to approach this tool as you would any other high speed power tool...with understanding and respect. The instructions are in the box. At least, they were in the box of the one I purchased.

I like mine. I'd rather take off the excess thickness of B&S sets in one pass than spend a long time in front of the drum sander, and I do basic headstock and neck shaft thicknessing with it too. I'm glad I have it.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Man, I love this forum.....
I've never used the darned thing, and I'm glued to my screen with all the thoughtful, experienced replies to this post. Not sure if I'll get one, but that isn't the point. Fascinating reading - learning from all you guys.

Thanks.

When I got mine a couple of years ago I had problems using my benchtop Harbor Freight drill press. I now have a better press with a large flat table. The use of the Wagner is night and day compared to the cheap press.

Now I did have to figure out how to use it. My first few attempts were not that great and not that safe. You have to take off just a little at a time. Make sure your table surface is level (and watch for dust and chips under the wood you are working). I have been using it for thicknessing the headstock and tapering the neck shaft. I haven’t tried doing a back and side with it yet.

I think the word Safety isn’t really the right word. If used correctly with the proper attention to safety, it can be safe. But I can imagine bad things happen when things go wrong. All in all I think it is a good tool if you can get comfortable using it. However, if you don’t feel comfortable and you have another way of accomplishing the task, take the route you feel safest with.


For me, I like it and am glad I spent the time to figure out how to use it.

So I think I'll just stick to using it to dimensioning neck blanks, rather than try to plane rosewood plates with it... I think mahogany is far easier to cut compared to rosewood anyways.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

BINGO!! There it all is right there in a nut shell. The Wagner Finger $#ucker is a very good tool but you need to apply a bit of skill and understanding to avoid those issues that await those who expect far too much right out of the box for a lousy 45 bucks. To get results that investment needs to be supplemented with a decent fence, a solid flat auxiliary table and time.

Would also agree that attempting to use a Wagner Mauling Manicure on a cheap, light weight and flimsy drillpress that can't spin @ the required RPM would be an exerciser in frustration also. But that's only a guess because I would never waste my money on one...2nd hand big steel please, if you find one cheap with flogged out bearings but good condition eslewhere, buy it, put some new bearings in for cheap and learn something about your machine along the way.

Being early Taiwanese, my machine is not anything grand. But it is a solid built floor standing affair fitted with good quality replacement chuck on a MT2 shank. If I recall correctly the Wagner Digit Dicer's instruction book recommend an operating speed of 4500rpm...Not many standard drill presses will do that and my old drill only spins @ 3630rpm flat out and tilted down hill...but I have found that is plenty enough for a good clean cut with "0" kickback.

Cheers

Kim

I like my Saf-T-Planer for thinning tasks. It makes quick work when you have to remove a 1/16th" from a whole back or sides.
Yes....it can be scary for small parts if you can't get a good grip on them. Head plates, bridge blanks etc. I tape those to a larger board so I can keep two hands on it.

A couple of things I could have mentioned before:
1) Never take off more than about 1/3 of the total thickness of the piece in one pass. As it gets thinner, take lighter cuts.

2) The heat of cutting is removed in the chips, as it is with routers and shapers. If you're not making chips the tool will be heating up, and that will dull it fast. It will also load up with resin on a lot of woods. Once it gets dull and loads up, it heats up faster, and gets dull and loads up more. That's one reason to take light cuts: so it won't bog down and you can keep the work moving.

3) The work will still heat up, and that dries out the upper surface. This can cause it to cup upward toward the tool if it's thin, and give you thin spots. You have to hold the work down on both sides; easy enough if you keep your fingers pointing _away_ from the tool.

I've made .5mm veneer with mine; it's tricky, but doable.

Alan is correct in this last post (as we always expect him to be!). I should have added something to my previous post. I mentioned that it must be operated at correct speeds. These are in the instruction sheet packed with the tool. I once neglected that, and tried to plane at lower speeds. My negligence caused the tool to grab and try to throw the work piece. NOT THE FAULT OF THE TOOL! It was my fault. When brought up to proper speed, it cut like a charm.

To anyone contemplating this tool for thicknessing backs or sides, I highly recommend Robbie O'Brian's youtube "luthier du jour" video series, in which he shows in great detail how he does this operation with the SafeTplaner. After watching this video, you will feel much more confident about doing it yourself.

You can also see the tool used repeatedly in Bob Benedetto's excellent video/DVD series on making an archtop guitar.

Cheers, everyone,
Patrick

Thanks for the taping to a bigger piece, Quine!

" Now I did have to figure out how to use it. My first few attempts were not that great and not that safe. You have to take off just a little at a time. Make sure your table surface is level (and watch for dust and chips under the wood you are working). I have been using it for thicknessing the headstock and tapering the neck shaft. I haven’t tried doing a back and side with it yet."

What is "tapering a neck shaft"? Sorry. I hope I did that right.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

John Killin wrote:
" Now I did have to figure out how to use it. My first few attempts were not that great and not that safe. You have to take off just a little at a time. Make sure your table surface is level (and watch for dust and chips under the wood you are working). I have been using it for thicknessing the headstock and tapering the neck shaft. I haven’t tried doing a back and side with it yet."

What is "tapering a neck shaft"? Sorry. I hope I did that right.[/quote]

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

I marked the depth of the neck at the first fret and at the 12 fret. Shimmed the end with the headstock so that the line between these points was parallel with the tool and used the Wagner to remove the wood down to the line.