Preview: Ridgid’s New Triple-Cutter 13” Planer
By Rick Reimundez
Ridgid recently updated their benchtop thickness planer line with a 3-cutter blade design. They say the triple-cutter design will mean smoother finishes on your work (read: less sanding). And the cutters are double edged, too, so you can flip them around and use the other edge to prolong the life of the blades.
Other cool features: it’s got 8 depth stops for repeatable results on multiple workpieces, on-board tool storage for blade changes, large adjustable infeed and outfeed tables, and it’s about 20 pounds lighter than its closest competitors — with a stronger motor, too.
It features a 120V 15A motor with overload protection, so you won’t burn it out accidentally. (On purpose is another matter entirely.) It also has an integrated dust hood panel, soft touch controls, and a side mounted depth adjustment handwheel.
The cutting edges are indexed, so once you install them there’s no alignment necessary, and the planer uses a lead screw system so you don’t need to deal with some clunky cutter head locking mechanism to reliably set the thickness of the cut from side to side.
There’s also a gauge that measures the current thickness of a piece as it feeds in. The eight “Repeat-A-Cut” depth stops are really cool. They’re calibrated to common thicknesses so you can just set to them and plane your wood to the same thickness – the right thickness — with the minimum of fuss, or trial and error.
Pricing is not yet available on the Home Depot site, but it’ll be around $350 to $380 considering the price of the outgoing model. It comes with a 3-Year warranty from Ridgid, but if you register the purchase on their site, you’ll get the Lifetime warranty. The kicker: Ridgid claims that replacement cutter heads are nearly half the price of many other competitors’ blades.
13” Thickness Planer with 3-blade Cutterheads [Ridgid]
October 18th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Isn’t there a 3-blade planer on the market already?
October 18th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I_bilyk,
There is, just not from Ridgid - the comparison of the “new” 3-blade cutter was with their older offerings.
Sorry if that came across as it being something new to the marketplace.
- Rick
December 26th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
i have a ridgit 14″ ? planer with 2 blades, can i purchase a tripple cutter head somewhere? leonard
February 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Try ridgidparts.com for a 3-cutter head. Maybe the new one will fit the old model.