Today I’ll be reviewing Mophorns Vevor 12-1/2″ thickness planer. If you find this review helpful and decide this planer is for you, you can purchase it here.
Planing a board to thickness is an important part of accurate woodworking.
Sure, you can get by without a thickness planer. I know I sure did for several years. But when your projects require wood with more specific dimensions, this tool becomes invaluable in my opinion.
For a few years now I’ve been using a borrowed thickness planer, the 12-½” dewalt version. It’s been good, but I thought it was time to have one of my own.
Mophorn was kind enough to send me their planer, model Vevor M1B-LS-3302, 12-½” 15 amp 110v machine.
This thickness planer comes with a sturdy base, plus it has some features that I really like over my old Dewalt, but it lacks a couple things too.
NOTE – In the picture you see a mobile base under the legs. That’s not included with the planer, it was a base I bought separately. It’s by HTC, you can buy it here.
What This Planer Is Missing
This thickness planer doesn’t have a depth gauge built in that would help gauge the elevation of the blade when you’re initially setting the first cut.
It also lacks a locking mechanism to lock the motor carriage in place, like my Dewalt has.
However, the first issue is easily resolved by simply measuring the thickness of the board and setting the planing depth so the depth indicator is 1mm less than the thickness of the board. I use that method on my first cuts and it works fine.
As for the lack of a locking mechanism, I’m not even sure one’s really required, it’s just what I’m used to using the Dewalt all those years. The Vevor’s motor carriage didn’t move on its own by the vibrations of the machine (not any that I could tell anyway), and maybe the lock on the Dewalt version is more suited for heavy usage, or just for an extra precautionary measure.
What I Like About The Vevor Thickness Planer
Overall my experience so far with this tool is really good. It seems like a solid tool with good safety features, plus all the main features you would expect in a useful, practical benchtop thickness planer.
For one, it has rollers. Not only on the infeed and the outfeed platforms, but also on the top of the machine, which are useful for feeding boards back to the entry side of the machine.
The base inside the machine is very reflective, like a mirror. I can’t say this is super helpful yet, but it makes it very easy to see the rollers and the blade mechanism, so if anything seems to be going wrong it would seem to make it easier to inspect these components.
In the picture below you can see the ribbed roller, and the blade (the bright strip) simply by looking down at this reflective surface.
It’s also got anti-kickback teeth on the entry side, just before the first roller. My Dewalt did not have these teeth. How they work is they collapse out of the way when feeding, but lock the board in from being pulled back the wrong way.
I can tell you from experience, this is important!
A few years ago, I got myself a busted thumb from kickback when a board literally broke (it was pretty thin) when the blades in my Dewalt hit a knot. The back half of the board kicked back into my feeding hand. If that machine would’ve had these anti-kickback teeth, that would have never happened!
So I believe this is a fantastic feature (see image below). You can see the tips of the teeth hanging down from inside the machine.
It’s also got all the fine-tuning features you would expect in a precision machine. You can adjust the infeed and outfeed tables, and the parallelism of the blade.
As expected, it also comes with a knife blade gauge tool for properly setting the blades when replacing or sharpening.
And finally, it has a replaceable dust collection chute. You can use the standard chute which I tend to use just because there’s no fine dust, so everything falls to the floor and is easy to clean up.
But if you have a shop vac or nearby dust collection hose, you can install the dust collector chute to make quick work at cleanup time!
How This Planer Performs
As I mentioned above, the initial cut requires measuring the thickness of the board and setting your planer to 1 mm less.
Once that first pass is complete, I simply turn the depth adjustment handle about ¼ turn and plane again.
That’s how I’ve always planed boards down using my old planer, and it seems to work just fine with this model as well. Of course, this varies a bit depending on wood hardness and/or board width. For pine or narrow boards, I make slightly bigger adjustments per pass, and with hardwoods or wider boards, I’ll take it more slowly.
TIP – I judge the proper adjustment for the wood on the sound of the machine while it’s cutting. It’s pretty easy to get a feel for this while you’re planing. If your planer sounds like the motor is bogging down quite a bit, that means you’re putting too much stress on it and you may need to make smaller adjustments between cuts.
As for the quality of cut, I have no complaints. The boards I’ve cut have come out smooth and flat, as expected.
And it doesn’t seem to matter if I feed on the left, the right, the center, or diagonally. It does well and the thickness is even across the width and length of the board.
NOTE – As usual, you will have snipe. This is where the first and last couple inches of the board are not perfect, due to one roller being in play as opposed to 2, only during the very ends of the board. That’s expected and there are ways to combat snipe, but I tend to just plane boards that are about 5” longer than needed, then I cut off the sniped ends.
Assembling The Vevor 12-½” Thickness Planer
Assembly was a breeze on this machine. And as any good manufacturer does, extra hardware was included just to make sure you’re not short anything – fantastic!
When you unpackage the planer, pull out the hardware and tools, but don’t break apart the styrofoam yet…
With the styrofoam back on the machine, it’s much easier to flip it upside down to install the rubber feet.
With this done you can flip it back over, and move on to assembling the base.
This is when I adjusted my mobile base and set the thickness planer base into the mobile base.
Again, this mobile base was purchased separately (find it here).
With that complete, secure the thickness planer to the base using the provided bolts.
The planer comes with the dust-collector chute installed. If you want the standard chute installed, do that next.
Once complete, you have these parts left over.
In the picture above you see the included tools, the dust collection chute, the extra bolts nuts and washers, and the knife blade gauge.
Final Thoughts On The Vevor Thickness Planer
This planer seems to be priced right, plus it has all the features and the quality I need for my woodworking hobby. I definitely suggest considering this planer if you’re in the market for one. Overall, I think it’s a good choice for small-shop woodworkers.
You can find the Mophorn Vevor thickness planer here.
