I actually have the same one, but I’ve never used it on anything wider than the blade it works great though. LOL, they do make a lot of wood chips. Be well my friend.
I have a hand plane, but not an electric one. I use it mostly for edge work and high spots. if I want to plane a large surface, I always use a stationary planer.
Kevin, I think on a large piece, it does the hard work for you, rather than sanding alone, after you plane it down to nice clean wood, I believe you follow up with a sander. I never understood how they worked without leaving 3 inch strip at different heights, yeah, it would be great for board edges, I am not sure, I never used one.
Yea...not really. If that was the case the tool would be useless, and rather expensive for a small use case. The idea is, in order to get the plane you want on big pieces, you simply make a first pass (any where), and that pass becomes your reference. You can use leveling tools to identify high spots. Start from your reference (the so called low point), and shave off you high point in what ever amount of passes it takes. That's not to say that this is a match for big planers. It'll just take more work, but infinitely faster than a block plane.
I believe this tool does have a very small use case, especially in the true use of a planar. The plane reference I would agree with except that in order you use it on a large piece you’d need to run it diagonally to use the plane reference and still cut the remaining material to reference which means the trailing surface would run over completely unplanned wood and cause a variation in cut which is not how a planar is used in most cases. So yes small uses for the cost, many tools fit in this category but if you need them and use them the VALUE outweighs the cost
