Okay--I have the planer, and I have bought the spare blades. Both are great. I have a Makita planer as well, and the Delta, in my opinion, rates right up there with it. I just want to write a few words about the importance of sharp blades, and how to keep them that way.
When you replace the blades, you are going to notice an immediate difference. The new blades are exceptionally sharp. The planer will make a lot less noise, and the wood will slide through easily. This goes for very wide planks of very hard woods. The two hardest woods I have planed are bubinga (used for guitar backs) and olivewood. Both are dense, hard, and heavy. A 12" wide board seems to glide through with a new blade.
The thing is, a new blade doesn't stay "new" for that long, particularly if you are planing a lot, and are planing hard woods. So--after years and years of planing--here are a few things I have learned for keeping your blades sharp.
First--sharpen them with the Hone-Mate, which you can get from Woodworker's Supply (www.woodworker.com). This tool is meant for jointers, but it works great on planer blades, and the best thing is, you can sharpen them right there on the planer without taking them off. In 5 minutes, you're done. This will easily triple the life of your blades. It costs about $40, and I recommend the diamond version.
Second--sharpen often. The duller a blade is, the faster it wears--both on itself, on the planer, and on your nerves as you try to force a piece of wood through an increasingly noisy planer. Sharpening often also reduces nicks and tear-outs.
Third--plane in the right direction. Most woods, particularly hardwoods, have a certain slope to their grain. Feel the wood, with the grain, from one side to the other. Your hand will probably slide over it more easily in one direction than the other. The direction that your hand slides over smoothest is the direction that you should be feeding your board into the planer. It will give you a smoother board and save your blades some wear.
Finally--if your wood is really hard, wet it with a sponge before planing. Let the water soak in for about 30 seconds. This dramatically softens the grain, and eases planing. Don't worry too much about the wood getting wet and warping. With hardwoods, the water doesn't soak in much, and the wet wood is removed in one or two passes through the planer. I have used this technique when my blades were beyond sharpening and I didn't have a spare on hand.
I've planed literally thousands of board feet with my two planers. Sharp blades are a joy to work with, and take a lot of frustration out of woodworking. I hope these suggestions are useful. In any case, your blades will eventually wear out, so keep a set of spares on hand. Happy woodworking! DELTA 22-562 12-1/2-Inch Steel Knife for 22-560 Planer (2-Pack)
I have been running the same set of blades in my Delta 22-560 Planer for over a year. I use them to plane quarter-sawn white oak and have done about 1500 board feet. The blades are still sharp. I have not yet felt a need to flip them. I did remove them once to see how hard it would be. The locator holes in the blades made it EASY. The tight tolerence between the holes and the locator pins insured a minimal (less than .002")runout. The only possible problem is that the two blades MUST be ground exactly the same, there is no method to fine tune the alignment. This is not really a big problem for most sharpening services. The price is quite good, I would call them a good value.
There is no comparison to blades that go into other planers that require tedious alignment. These have alignment pins to give you an exact fit every time, plus, they are reversible, so for 2 knifes, you get 4 cutting edges.
This is an update to a review I placed here 5 years ago. These blades are still a good bargain but I just learned that they cannot be re-sharpened. I sent them to Burn's Tool sharpening service and they responded that the blades were "disposable, and will not sharpen nicely". BUT it took me 5 years to dull 1 1/2 sets of knives (3 edges), so I am not terribly disappointed. If anyone knows somewhere that will sharpen these knives, (at a cost less that just buying new ones), please leave comment here.
these knives are ok. they don't last too long as they are only steel, not carbide. next time i would spend the xtra and get carbide ones. these knives go dull in just soft wood, as is expected from a steel knife. these delta knives are good for what they are.
go carbide.
These 22-562 blades work well for softer woods, but for hard wood they seem to dull fast, I planed a small pile of hard maple and had to index the blades, it would be nice if they had carbide edge blades for hard wood. But all in all for the size of the machine they are worth the money. - Razor Blade - Planer Knives - Delta'
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