Gordon,
For me the thickness planer is a must have tool and sees lots of use. The one I have is a refurbished Ryobi, I think, that my mother-in-law bought to do craft projects, but never used it. My inlaws have since sold their home and travel year-round in a nice new motorhome, and had nowhere else to store it. I had no option but to tell them that I would look after it and keep it at our house. It too is a cheap model, but works great. After spending years, as well as hundreds of dollars, buying specific thicknesses of pine boards at over three times the price of one-by material for my wife to do her painted crafts (she follows the pattern religiously, drives me nuts), we now plane our own pine boards to exact thicknesses. Enough history.

The single most important reason I like using this planer, is because I can clean-up the surfaces of old, used boards, before running them through the tablesaw. Most of the wood (90%) that I use in any of my projects, boats or not, come from recycled sources. Garage sales are probably the best source for old wood, but you have to know where/how to look for it. Often it's free. And let me tell you, there's a great feeling you get when you reveal the beauty of old/used/free wood by running it through the thickness planer. Great tool. Although I have yet to run strips through it, I'm sure it would work fine.
SMF

: 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.)