Dremel PL400 XPR Planer, Par for the course Dremel..

Overall Rating3.333.333.333.333.33

Par for the course Dremel attachement

Makes reasonably quick work of trimming a door edge that rubs, but doing a neat job takes some practice. Heavy touch up sanding will be required.
This Dremel attachment is like every other Dremel attachment I have been suckered into buying, it is clearly designed by bean counters. It works just good enough that I would feel bad about throwing it out. For $20, it is a nice tool to have, but I would gladly pay more for one that had a better guide and did a neater job.

A couple specific gripes:
1. The 1/64th depth isn’t off by a bit, it is off by a factor of 4. It planes nearly a 1/16th off per pass. I’m still trying to figure out how they came up with the 1/64th number.
2. The guide is useless, it is up to the user to attempt to keep the tool flat on the surface. This takes some practice and will result in some gouges and uneven planed surfaces that need to be smoothed off with sanding.

Update (2/6/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, Dremel PL400 XPR Planer Attachment Tools & Hardware, was written by Mood.

The average rating for this item is 3.3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.

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Reviews (3)

John

February 26th, 2010 at 3:11 am    


Overall Rating55555

Good attachment (for what it is)
No, you won’t be doing any fine woodworking with this Dremel XPR attachment. But for twenty bucks, it makes awfully quick work of planing the bottom of a door so that it closes. I recently did a bathroom tile project, and needed to take just a tiny bit off a section of a door. The planer attachment certainly did the job.

It does make a lot of dust/mess, and the guide is far from perfect in keeping you at 90 degrees to the door. Overall, however, it’s worth the money.


Mood

March 15th, 2010 at 12:18 pm    


Overall Rating33333

Par for the course Dremel attachement
Rated 3 stars.


buddha-dog

March 26th, 2010 at 6:47 pm    


Overall Rating22222

Tends to make a mess of a door edge
This tool embodies a great concept, and who wouldn’t want to dispatch that sticking door problem with five minutes effort and a quick vacuuming?

But I was disappointed with the performance of the tool, mostly because of two factors.

1. The cut on each pass is fairly deep, maybe as much as 3/32″.
2. The right-angle plate that’s supposed to help you keep the tool square to the face of the door is way too short to be effective.

Consequently, blending the cut from one pass into the next is effectively impossible. If you make three overlapping cuts, you will get three clearly visible steps in the cut. And by visible, I mean visible when you’re looking at the face of the door, not just looking up close at the edge or top.

Also, especially because of the weight of the tool pulling down on one side, it’s extremely challenging to keep the cut perpendicular to the face. Expect a wavy edge that’s also visible when looking at the door face.

On the positive side, it did fix the problem. I just wished when I was done that I took the time to scribe the door, take it down, and plane it. Something told me this tool would be too good to be true, but I guess hope springs eternal :).


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