: Does anyone have any experience with a Delta TP300 Shopmaster 12"
: Portable Planer? It's about the cheapest planer I've found. Delta seems
: like a good brand to me, but I've seen the planer going for $195. Is it
: any good? I would be buying it to reduce strips to a uniform 1/4"
: thickness. Would this machine be able to handle it? Any thoughts? (I've
: never owned a planer.)

I have the Rigid 13" thickness planer and love it. but I use it for dimensioning wood for guitar-building, too. I honestly think it's a "nice to have" for strip building rather than a "need to have" tool. On the other hand, boy are those 3/16" thickness uniform strips a pleasure to work with. I would put it on the list below a high quality jig-saw, table-saw with a good rip fence set-up and a good router with a table set-up. If you've got all that other stuff...go for it. Can't have enough tools!

BTW, you can achieve pretty uniform strip thickness with a table saw setup as long as you devise a good infeed roller support system and outfeed table.

Jim