Preinstalled or DIY Installed Byrd Shelix® Head for DeWalt® DW735 Planer?

hey dir armer J here from dir farmer j.com if you're considering getting a DeWalt DW 735 planer you should know it's also available from bird shelix with the head pre-installed what's it going to cost you and what are the benefits stay tuned hey de farmer J here from dearmer j.com we really love this dw735 DeWalt 13-in planer and it was great out of the box stock but we decided to upgrade using bird shelix helical 40 cutter head in here and that took it to the next level you can buy it with it pre-installed but there's a couple things you need to know the price point for instance you can get this machine right now stock without any of the accessories for around $600 that is a plain machine that is not with uh the the stand that you see here that's not with these uh extensions all that but the plane machines around $600 that's a good value for 13in planer with its own chip ejection system the blower and all that very nice however you can get it with the shelix head installed for around $1600 $11,000 more for the the cutter head installed is it worth it there's a third alternative as well well and that's to buy the machine like we did we bought some accessories the stand uh the tables and later on the wixie gauge that sort of thing we added those and then what we did is we bought the shelix head now you can get the shelix head for I believe right at $555 right now so that's ready to go to put into the machine so if I bought the 600 and the 555 that comes up significantly below $1,00 so what do you get for the difference there well it comes from the factory ready to go it's been calibrated everything's been checked and you should know that whenever you change out the cutter heads on any of these whether it's done by you or by shelix it voids the warranty from DeWalt I'm not really concerned about that though because the machine itself is of quality construction uh and based on my experience when I actually did the change out of the head seing the innards of the machine and all the drives it's very well put together I'm not concerned about losing the warranty and if it comes from the factory uh from bird shelix where they took it from the factory excuse me did an install at the factory where the heads are made uh they're really going to take their time putting it in there well so that you don't have problems so for that price differential you're going to get um that head ready to go installed with a machine you can put to work the very same hour that you receive it so whether you buy it pre-installed or you do the install itself what do you get that makes it worthwhile and while you may look and say $555 for a head what's that going to do well the lifetime value of this piece of equipment is pretty incredible here's why number one it's significantly lower in sound output you can check out this video that we did that show you the differences of sound that is done when it's running the stock head and the sound that it is creating when it's using the helical head it's pretty significant secondly the finish of cut is much much better because the helical head is shearing the wood off as it's going slicing it off at an angle uh very cleanly versus when you have a straight line cutter blade it's more chopping the wood and you can actually see this pronounced effect in certain Woods where it was run through too quickly um or with too much depth where you see a scallop effect you're never going to get that with the shelix head the third item if you nick a knife and you will because there's always going to be something it can even be just a hard knot that does it or a piece of gravel that's embedded in it some uh staple that sort of thing you Nick a knife on a straight blade you've got to replace that whole blade and my friend over at uh 731 woodwork shows that it takes about 10 minutes to change out a blade it literally takes 10 seconds or less to rotate out um or rotate the cutter there's four cuting on it of wherever it was nicked and you're back in business so these conveniences and cost of ownership are just really nice so lifetime value of the machine and the performance you can actually do ingrain planing um such as ingrain Butcher Block uh or cutting boards with this helical head and it'll do a beautiful job of doing the skim cut so there's a lot of advantages for doing it that way I will say this that by putting in the head myself I became much more familiar with this machine so in my case uh I thought it was a great approach to buy the head put it in I'm much more comfortable with this machine now I understand how it it's uh how it runs how it's put together the different systems in it I know how to repair it and fine-tune it and calibrate it differently than I would if I just bought it and put it in use and if that's important to you that's a consideration you want to take into account if you're interested in purchasing one of these machines or just the cutter head to upgrade a machine you already have go to the link that we Supply in the description below check it out they do a great job made right here in America if you're here in America it's a great way to support American Tool manufacturers another upgrade you should seriously consider is installing this wixie digital gauge this is a game changer I'm able to stand there and adjust up and down and see it right on the display exactly what I'm going to get and you can see how to calibrate it all check out this episode where we show you where to buy it how it works how to install it and how to make it work flawlessly every time hey thanks for joining me today until the next time this is dirtfarmer J from dirtfarmer j.com [Music]