WEN 6552 Thickness Planer:

If you’ve ever experienced the unenviable task of repurposing rough and ragged wood via manual sanding, you’ll appreciate just how tough and time-consuming this can be.

Who says it needs to be such hard work, though?

Enter the WEN 6552 13-inch 3-blade benchtop thickness planer; the ideal solution for anyone from beginner hobbyists to woodworking professionals who want to breathe new life into old wood.

As you’ll see from this article, the WEN 6552 comes with a variety of excellent features that make it as quick and easy as possible to go from rough, uneven pieces of wood to smooth boards of consistent thickness, all without the blood, sweat, and tears of manual sanding!

When it comes to thickness planing, the general rule of the thumb is that more blades and a higher blade speed equate to a smoother finish.

The WEN 6552 has you covered in this respect thanks to its three-blade design and its high cutting speed of 25,500 cuts per minute (this is much higher than even the WEN 6552’s predecessor – the 6550 – features only two blades and only 17,000 cuts per minute).

By increasing the number of cutting surfaces and the cutting speed, WEN Products have reduced the amount of follow-up sanding required with the WEN 6552 to very little (and in a lot of cases none), minimizing the time and effort needed to achieve as smooth a finish as possible.

Not only that, but the planer’s three blades are reversible thanks to a double cutting face on each, allowing you to turn these around to extend their lifespan so you can continue to enjoy sharp, quality cuts over a much longer period.

The WEN 6552’s powerful 15 amp motor helps it handle even the toughest and roughest of woods, giving you the peace of mind that it will handle the majority of what you can throw at it. That isn’t just on smaller pieces of wood either, as the unit’s large frame allows it to accommodate timber up to 6 inches in thickness and 13 inches in width. Combine this with the high feed rate of 26 feet per minute, and you won’t be hanging around waiting on the WEN 6552 planer to complete its business.

With all this talk about blade size, cutting speed and the powerful motor, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the WEN 6552 is more suited to macro rather than micro adjustments to the wood you feed into it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The thickness planer features a handy adjustment knob that allows users to select to remove anywhere from between 0 to 3/32 of an inch from each pass, while the onboard planing gauge will enable users to monitor the WEN 6552’s performance while in action to ensure the finished wood meets their required specification.

One problem that thickness planers are synonymous with is snipe, and this term refers to when the planer takes off more material at both the start and end of a piece of timber. Snipe occurs due to the weight of the wood outside the planer pivoting the ends into the cutting blades with more pressure, leading to it removing more material. The WEN 6552 helps to limit the issue of snipe thanks to it’s tri-roller feeding system and adjustable height infeed and outfeed tables which provide additional support for the timber being planed.

Unsurprisingly, achieving a quality of finish that the WEN 6552 planer is renowned for on even the toughest and roughest of woods can lead to a lot of stress and stain on the machine. The 6552 planer is no ornament, and WEN Products have engineered it to be as durable and long-lasting as possible to ensure you’re still using it in years to come.

You don’t need to worry about the machine moving around during use either. While the machine’s relatively low weight of only 66 lbs makes it ideal for any woodworker on the go, this can sometimes be the downfall of a power tool as it can prevent it feeling planted during use. Thankfully, the WEN 6552 features a heavy-duty cast iron base to overcome this issue while simultaneously providing structural rigidity to the machine, and it even features handy mounting points should these be required.

When you do want to move the planer between jobs though, the handy carrying handles and the foldable feed tables help to make this as easy as possible.

When you consider the overall level of adjustability that allows you to fine-tune how much cutting gets completed on each pass, combined with the WEN 6552’s three blades, powerful motor, and high cutting speed that combine to provide as smooth a finish as possible, it’s no wonder that the WEN 6552 is one of the go-to options in terms of quality and affordability for anyone who doesn’t want to spend large amounts of time manually sanding timber to a high specification.

(WEN offers an alternative thickness planer, the 6550. We’ve provided a side-by-side comparison of the WEN 6550 vs 6552 in the table below, but generally, you get an additional cutting blade and a higher cutting speed with the 6552 which usually equates to a smoother finish.)

WEN 6550 vs 6552

Model Number:	6550	6552
Manufacturer:	WEN Products	WEN Products
Motor:	120V, 60Hz, 15A	120V, 60Hz, 15A
Power Source:	AC/DC	AC/DC
Warranty:	2 years	2 years
Cutterhead Speed:	8500 RPM	8500 RPM
Number of Blades:	2 blades	3 blades
Cuts per Minute:	17,000	25,500
Feed Rate:	26 FPM	26 FPM
Max Depth of Cut (boards <6″ in width):	3/32″	3/32″
Max Depth of Cut (boards >6″ in width):	1/32″	1/32″
Tool Dimensions:	23.5″ x 24″ x 19″	25.2″ x 21.8″ x 16″
Table Size:	12-1/2″ x 9-3/8″	13-1/4″ x 9-1/2″
Max Board Thickness:	6″	6″
Max Board Width:	12.5″	13″
Tool Weight:	73 LBS	66 LBS
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