Makita Thickness Planer Reviewed – A Compact Tool for Every Shop!

The Makita 2012NB is great for a small workshop or for taking to the jobsite!

In reviewing this tool, we found the Makita 2012NB is a quiet to use compact portable thickness planer that is a light 60 pounds when compared to some of the other portable thickness planers.  It is ready to use right out of the box so you can get started right away.   And being that it is one of the quietest portable thickness planners, your neighbor’s will be thankful!

With 9 inch extension tables, the Makita 2012NB thickness planner has a total feed bed length of approximately 30 inches.  It is only a 12 inch wide capacity but that will handle most nominal sized boards. This tool can handle up to a 6 3/32 inch board and can plane down to a 1/8 inch depth.

It has a dial scale that has five 1/64 marked increments. And in order to determine how much thickness you are about to remove, it has a removal depth indicator pin.  Unfortunately, although very accurate, the fine adjustment crank moves about 5/64 of an inch per full turn.  This is due to the metric screw- so it moves about 2 mm.  This can be a little frustrating for we who do not use the metric system on a regular basis- so a review of your conversion charts might be in order!

The Makita planer only has 2 cutting blades that have a rate feed of 28 feet per minute and about 50 cuts per inch.  The very slender double-edged blades can be discarded after they become dull. The difference between a 3 blade planer and a 2 blade planer, such as the Makita, is that the 3 blade has 1.5 times as many cuts per minute and the blades will tend to last longer.  This is a fact you may want to keep in mind when considering the 2012NB planer.

Though this is a single speed, 2 blade tool, it is surprisingly accurate in the cutting.  It does tend to have quite a bit of snipe at times but doing the usual fixes like the use of rolling out-feed supports and the slight lifting of the in-feed end you can minimize this condition.  It may take a few more passes with the sander but you should get a clean enough cut to do good woodwork.

One issue that seems to arise with this compact unit, is that when making a cut depth of 1/16 inch it tends to vibrate the machine and it struggles to pass the board through.  However,  with a large fan and housing, you can run this portable planner for hours and it hardly gets hot.

The Makita 2012NB thickness planner doesn’t come with a dust collection hose adapter, but if you get the optional dust hood, the collection seems to work well.  Without the hood it sprays the chips out the back, and besides the horrible mess, chips may clog the diverter.

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