Drill press planers?

There's no doubt that I'll be buying a drill press planer. The Wagner Safe-T-Planer seems to be the shiz-nit. HOWEVER, in doing my online research, I found a "look-alike" for half the price. It's made in Taiwan, not China (which means, to me anyway, that it's slightly less "disposable").

Does anyone have experience with drill press planers, either the Wagner or the clone (or both)?

Weigh in, my friends, and share your opinions. Good deal, or waste of money?

Here's a link to the planer I found -

http://woodworker.com/drill-press-planer-mssu-24760.asp?utm_source=...

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Permalink Reply by FRANK on September 25, 2011 at 7:45am

I see about a $25 difference here .and I agree with FF but If i were in need of this item right away with similar concerns and could only afford the planer from WWS Id try to fill those gaps with epoxy or something to fill up the Voids next to the Blades ,so it wont rip your work from your hands .

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Permalink Reply by Mark Pollock on September 25, 2011 at 8:44am

I'd hate to see the results of attempting to fill the gaps, not getting things balanced quite right, and then having a nice wobble on the planer. At best you would have a lousy planing cut.The Wagner is so right on, so very well made, it's really hard to imagine fooling around with anything else to save a few bucks. And if you lose $25 of good wood due to going cheaper, then your savings are gone.And the tolerances are so tight on the Wagner that you can cut the rabbett in a bridge and not have to smooth away any tool marrks afterwards.

While there are many tools that are adequately substituted with cheaper versions, I really don't think this is one of those.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Mitchell on September 27, 2011 at 1:41pm

I got the "best of both worlds", so to speak. I took everyone's helpful, unanimous advice (thank you very much, everyone), and bought the genuine article; the venerable Wagner Safe-T-Planer. AND I bought it used on eBay, so I saved a few bucks!

One of my first uses will be to make peghead veneers (or possibly some "backstrap overlays"). I'm a newbie luthier-wannabe, and my first two projects will be reattaching a snapped headstock on an Epiphone EJ-200CE, and fixing a fractured headstock on a Gibson Montana J-100.

So I'm going to be a pest here asking for advice. Having very limited experience with woodworking (and none in finishing), the learning curve will be very steep for me.

I apologize in advance.