I have recently gotten into wood working and decided that I needed to have a thickness planer in my shop. With tight funds and realistic expectations, I decided to purchase the WEN 6550 planer. I came to this decision after doing countless hours of research and watching pretty much every video out there comparing, using, and reviewing planers. While big yellow came out on top in most reviews and in forum discussions, I just couldn't justify spending that much money for a tool that will probably not get used that often. Especially when the WEN seems to get overwhelmingly good reviews. Now, to get to the review. My package arrived completely intact. I had visions of battered boxed with broken or missing contents. None of that happened. The box was completely intact and the planer was well cushioned inside. Setting up the planer was a simple matter of removing the styrofoam, attaching the handle, attaching the dust chute, wiping off the infeed, outfeed, and granite tables and waxing all of them down. The next thing I did was place the planer on a completely level surface and check the surfaces with a level. Everything was level in all directions and the cutter head needed no adjustments. The first piece of wood I ran through the planer was a scrap 2X4 that I know had a slight warp. Several passes through the planer gave me some nice square edges and most of the warp was planed out. I'm sure that if I had kept going I could remove the entire warp. Next I fed a piece of oak pallet wood through the planer that was warped and cracked. While the planer did nothing for the crack, it did remove every bit of nastiness and revealed a beautiful tiger pattern under all the rough wood. Now I just have to find the right project for this piece of wood. One thing I read a lot about with all planers is snipe. The WEN 6550 is not immune to this either. While not bad there is definitely snipe there. Running other pieces of wood through the planer with sacrificial wood before and after what you are planing completely eliminated all traces of snipe. In fact, the cutter head did such a good job on my project I almost don't even need to sand now. But Fred, how loud is this planer? I'm glad you asked. It's loud. Running it without hearing protection just means that you will become friends with an Audiologist sooner rather than later because you WILL need hearing aids. Ok, all kidding aside, yes, it is loud and yes, you should wear hearing protection. Without any wood running through the planer it's not really any louder than any other tool in your shop. In fact, my table saw is probably louder but, put some wood through the planer and you can tell a huge difference in the decibels. Wood removal is excellent but I have yet to turn the handle more than 1/2 a turn per pass (1/32nd inch wood removal) and mostly I'm only doing 1/4 turns (1/64th inch wood removal) with each pass. Each full turn will remove 1/16th inch of wood. So far, I've run pine, poplar, oak, walnut, maple, and purple heart through the planer and it has yet to even act like it's having trouble. Once I've use the planer some more and gotten used to it, I'll try doing a full 1/16th inch in a pass to see what happens. This is a two blade cutter head planer and the blades are reversible. One review that I read said that blade removal was harder on this planer compared to others. Now, I will admit that I have nothing to compare that statement too but, I did not find blade removal hard or complicated. Just remove the two screws from the dust hood, remove the two screws from the blade cover and bam, there are your blades. There is a cutter head lock and you do have to push it down to rotate the cutter head to get to the 2nd blade but, that's not hard or a big deal. Time will tell how well this planer will hold up but, based on it's performance so far, I see no reason why I won't get many years of service out of it. If you are in the market for a planer, you should definitely consider WEN.
