Finally switched from hand planing to a thickness planer for drawer fronts

For the last 10 years I was hand planing every single drawer front. I do a lot of custom kitchen cabinets here in Portland and I thought I was saving money by not buying a thickness planer. Last month I had a job with 30 drawers and after 3 days of planing my shoulder was killing me. My neighbor let me borrow his Dewalt planer just to try it out. I got all 30 drawer fronts done in about 2 hours flat and they were more even than my hand work. I ordered one the next day and now I feel silly for waiting so long. Has anyone else made a similar tool upgrade that they wish they did sooner?

3 comments

3 Comments

wren_mitchell17d ago

I turned 50 last year and finally gave in and bought a cordless nailer after years of hammering every trim piece by hand. My thumb is still a little sore from that last stubborn nail, but the nailer saved me at least a week of work on a big casing job. Now I look at my hammer like it's a relic from a museum.

jordan_hill17d ago

Man, @wren_mitchell, you hammered by hand for 50 years? I can't wrap my head around that kind of patience on a casing job.

leewood17d ago

I read this one article last week about how some old school carpenters treat their hammers almost like part of their hand and it made me think of @wren_mitchell and his 50 year run. The guy in the story said he finally switched to a nailer after his arthritis flared up on a door casing job and it cut his time in half. I get the appeal of hanging onto the old way, but a week saved on one job sounds like a no brainer to me. Your thumb probably needed that break after all those decades.