I know that the blades in my thickness planer have never been changed. After working thru the process myself I know now there was no excuse for this. The resulting operations afterwards are wonderous. It definitely shows me that I got the machine with dull blades and just spent 5 years making them duller.

Episode notes:

The model I presented (22-580) in this video is pretty common though in the past year it has been updated (22-590). Below is a link to the updated model. While I like my planer, I don't consider it a "finish" planer, it's a rough tool but that is fine for doing the rough diminsioning prior to taking it to the bench. That's my opinion of most planers of this type so the quality of the wood coming out is not 'that' important. Close is good enough. Therefore even the cheapest thickness planers would probrably work fine for this type of woodworking.

Reader Update: I had a nice gentlemen, who goes by mouppe on YouTube, inform me of a cool tip. The reason they elongate the holes in the blades is so that if you get a nic, thus causing a raised blemish in the planed wood, you can move the blades left and right. That way a nic in the first blade is compensated for by the second blade and vice versa. Pretty cool! Who woulda thunk that the engineers who designed this would actually be so forward thinking.

• Delta 22-590 13-in Thickness Portable Planer
• POWERTEC HSS Planer Blades for Delta 13" Planer 22-580
• DELTA 22-549 Replacement Knives for DELTA 13-Inch Planer

(these links are associated with the Wortheffort Amazon Associates program. Making purchases from them will send a few pennies my way.)