MacAllister Electric Planer Review

I damaged my old electric planer when trying to change the blades. I would have read the manual, but I'd lost it. A quick trawl of the interwebz showed cheap and tacky planers (like my old one) at about £25-£30, a few around £50 and big name brands from £150 and up. I'm not one for buying professional-quality stuff, and I don't have a favoured brand that I would always buy. And let's face it, even well-known brands can produce the occasional lemon.

One planer that caught my eye was the MacAllister one - MSHP900 3MM PLANER 230-240V. Like all of their tools, it has a pleasing light grey and black colour scheme - a bit like a Star Wars Storm Trooper - with sky blue highlights. It promised to be able to cut up to 3mm at a time, unlike most of the others which can only do 2mm. But I think what sold it to me, as a left-hander, was the ability to fit the dust bag on either the left- or right-hand side.

It was £50 from Screwfix. It was a new product, so there were no customer reviews on their website (there are some now, all very positive), but I trust Screwfix to not sell stuff that they know is unacceptable. By the way, it turns out MacAllister is a kind of house brand of the Kingfisher Group which owns both Screwfix and B & Q, so the products are available through those outlets as well as online.

I tried planing some wood, but nothing was taken off until I set it 1mm, so I think it maybe wasn't set up accurately in the factory. The machine has a depth stop that you can use in conjunction with the fence to cut rebates. I was keen to try that, but my left-handedness got in the way. I really couldn't push the plane and keep the fence in contact with the edge of the timber. No worries, I thought, I can just switch the fence and depth stop to the other sides. Well no, you can't. Despite the neutral-handedness implied by the bi-directional dust outlet, they didn't carry it through to these accessories. I don't know if any other planers do have fences and depth stops that can be fitted to either side of the machine - I would certainly consider it if I found one.

To sum up, it's a good planer - solid and well-built. Just don't expect to be able to use the fence if you're left-handed.