Is $1400.00 for a "Bench Top" Planer Justified?

"Wild Bad Bob" · Post by **"Wild Bad Bob"** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:42 am

"Green" is a liberal buzz word, used to be fashionable at parties, and to superficially discuss over lunch with your girl friends. Most dont know the real meaning and the consequences of most of there "green" things. Using "reclaimed materials" is another one.

skou · Post by **skou** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 3:56 am

JPG40504 wrote:If 'electric' is 'green' power, how come BO is so hot to trot over power plant emissions?

Now hydro and solar and wind are another thing.

JPG, Barry H. KNEW what he was doing. Here's a speech from Senator Barry H.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4

steve

WmZiggy · Post by **WmZiggy** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:00 am

JPG40504 wrote:If 'electric' is 'green' power, how come BO is so hot to trot over power plant emissions?

Now hydro and solar and wind are another thing.

Anyone who took Physics 101 knows that everything produces effects, some you want, others you don't. The most disturbing are those you don't know about. I doubt that BO ever took Physics 101, or if he did only as it applies to golf.

Wind energy, it is being learned, has some downsides too, like killing birds, drying fields, and interrupting normal weather patterns. That's what is being discovered here in North Dakota.

Among the ignorant, if you ask them where the energy comes from that powers their beloved cell phone, they will say "battery", or so some poll shows. Depressing! They haven't a clue that their cell phone, PC car, or other battery operated appliance is really coal fired. When I see a military or commercially operated aircraft flying on electricity alone, I will change my view on the need for petrol-chemical energy. At best, "green" is a fiction.

"Wild Bad Bob" · Post by **"Wild Bad Bob"** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:46 am

Ziggy,
most if not almost all, dont realize/know that electricity is the only product that is produce, shipped and used instantly!!!! Most do not realize power plants are manned and running 24/7/365!!! No green person whats carbon emissions, but the green people dont want a nuke in there back yard, Oh wind turbines in my back yard too, no way, too noisy for my cocktail/BBG party on the patio, and they are ugly, no to mention the birds. Hydro, Oh no, the fish cant swim freely. Solar, Oh no, all that lead in the batteries will end up in land fills!!!

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:09 am

I considered mentioning the 'downsides' of those 'alternative' sources, but took the easy way out and did not because 'green house gas' was the pertinent emphasis.

So is the weather change in ND really due to the decline in wind energy taken to drive all those 'propellers'? I am sure the wind energy is decreased.

"Wild Bad Bob" · Post by **"Wild Bad Bob"** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:29 am

JPG40504 wrote:I am sure the wind energy is decreased.

No, just dispersed.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:43 am

I was reading that a solar farm out west was cooking birds that flew over. The picture of the solar panels showed they covered a large area and were downing birds like one ever 2 minutes or something.

My sister in law lives near a wind turbine farm and she says the noise it a problem but no where near the problem of the modified wind patterns. Some places are getting no snow or rain and some are being swamped with both.

I guess some farmers have fields where half is almost swamp and the other half is desert. I told it is like a mountain with windward and leeward sides only the mountain is a turbine farm.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:05 pm

BuckeyeDennis wrote:Ed! It's time for a chill pill.

I will gladly concede that the DW735 is the best lunchbox planer on tne market, and at a very attractive price indeed!

WmZiggy and I both think very highly of our SS planers. WmZiggy, not being a newbie opportunistic cheapskate like me, would gladly pay inflation-adjusted retail again.

As near as I can tell, NO ONE LIVING HAS EVER TRIED BOTH! Presumably because if you have either, you are a happy camper!

But I still wouldn't trade my old SS Pro Planer for a new DW735

I am chilling.
My point is people almost always claim inflation for high prices when in fact inflation is often just a percentage of the increase.

So before you accept a higher price as inflation do the math and find out. You may find out the manufacture just decided to increase the price and you may or may not want to pay that increase.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:19 pm

WmZiggy wrote:All I was arguing is $1400 looks like more than it is when you sit down and do the inflation math. And, there are some things I really like about SS's planer.

That said (and having been said earlier) there are some tools I am willing to buy that are throw-away. Namely, Tool Freight & Harbor's 18v drill. I will never spend $150+ for a Makita, DeWalt, Ryobi or other big name cordless drill ever again. When my TFH batteries go bad and I can't get a replacement, into the recycle bin it goes. Yes, I have had the expensive Makita and Ryobi. When the batteries fail, they want $75+ for a new one. Not in my book. There I draw the line and go with cheap. I will never purchase other hand tools without a cord as enough goes in the land fills as it is. If I hear one more person tell me that battery operated cars, or what have you, are "green" they are going to get my green upchuck on their shoes.

Now I need the chill pill!

If you don't like buying batteries why not buy Rigid tools. They replace bad batteries under their service agreement. Sure you have to register them but that is small price to pay for free batteries for life.

My buddy owned an Interstate Battery franchise. No battery went into a land fill. Most were rebuilt and sold. Damaged ones were crushed, material separated and remanufactured again as batteries or something else.

Not a perfect method but one that sustained itself on very little new raw materials. Of course the process required energy and that came for other sources but it was a start in the right direction.

Besides what is the answer? We want all our modern toys and we don't want to live beside a power plant be it nuclear or other.

If you are buying Harbor Freight cordless tools you are supporting an industry that is using workers (often young kids) working in very toxic environments in Chine making batteries.

If you are using corded tools you are using the electricity being made by plants that have radioactive rods that will be toxic for thousands of years, or belch smoke and hydrocarbons.

So there is no good answer other than move into a cave and scavenge for food eaten raw. At which point you don't need a Shopsmith planer.

WmZiggy · Post by **WmZiggy** » Mon Sep 01, 2014 2:44 pm

Ed in Tampa wrote:If you don't like buying batteries why not buy Rigid tools. They replace bad batteries under their service agreement. Sure you have to register them but that is small price to pay for free batteries for life.

My buddy owned an Interstate Battery franchise. No battery went into a land fill. Most were rebuilt and sold. Damaged ones were crushed, material separated and remanufactured again as batteries or something else.

Not a perfect method but one that sustained itself on very little new raw materials. Of course the process required energy and that came for other sources but it was a start in the right direction.

Besides what is the answer? We want all our modern toys and we don't want to live beside a power plant be it nuclear or other.

If you are buying Harbor Freight cordless tools you are supporting an industry that is using workers (often young kids) working in very toxic environments in Chine making batteries.

If you are using corded tools you are using the electricity being made by plants that have radioactive rods that will be toxic for thousands of years, or belch smoke and hydrocarbons.

So there is no good answer other than move into a cave and scavenge for food eaten raw. At which point you don't need a Shopsmith planer.

Physics 101. No one - absolutely no one - is going to live a life without a footprint even if you delude yourself and call it "green" or move into a cave and eat raw food, or stupid below stupid, pay a carbon tax so you feel better.

In ND all of our in-State electric comes from Basin Electric which burns lignite coal mined in ND. Basin electric scrubs it's emissions, one of the first and only in the nation. Almost all ND wind generated electric goes to Florida. Among my choices, I'd rather plug into Basin, although I am switching to a natural gas heating system after 34 years of electric heat (costs going up thanks to BO, plus you have to pay for those 1 million dollar per wind generating heads).

When I was stationed at the South Pole in 2005 I visited with a scientist whose sole job was to take a 300 yr history of mercury in the atmosphere. He did this every day. He would take a 6 ft x 3" dia. PVC tube and drive it into the snow pack to get his sample; very similar to ice cores. When I asked him what it showed today he said it was the same as 300 yrs. ago when the industrial revolution began in Great Britain. When I questioned him on this, he said it's no longer the US or Great Britain, but China. And he said, you will never change it since every single Wok in every single household is heated with coal. When I asked if it's hurting us, he looked at me, smiled, and said, "We're still here!"

We're still here Ed, and I can't believe how global alarmists now have woodworkers arguing whose footprint is greener than whose.