Dark stone DS12904 Spiral cutterhead for Dewalt DW735 Planer (Upgrade to 40 Inserts)

This is an exellent replacement to the straight blade OEM. It is much quieter and smoother operating. It took me about 2 hours to swap out as I took my time so as not to screw it up. There are two errors in the instructions. At illustration #9, it only takes a 1/4 turn to open upper pulley belt cover (I almost unscrewed the thing). At image #17, it uses a 5mm hex to remove the gear box, not a 6. These are minor quibbles, however Dark Stone doesn't seem to return email inquiries. As noted by others there is a slight waviness to the finished surface. These can removed with a scraper or sander.

I wish I would have bought this at the beginning of my project. I cut down maple trees on my property and milled them then after drying for 2 years I processed it all into flooring. 1600sqft. For the first 1000 I struggled with the crappy two sided dreamt knives that often dull after the first few boards. I was frustrated and looking to buy a full size planer then I ordered a Byrd cutterhead but after they delayed delivery multiple times I decided to go with the dark stone. I couldn’t be happier! I have run between 800-1200sqft of maple and cedar through the first knife edge and it cuts as good as new. Before it was rediculously loud and would load up and trip the breaker even on less than 1/32 pass and now it rarely stops with any reasonable load I put on it.

I bought this because the reviews looked great and wanted to save 100 bucks over the Shelix. What a complete waste of time and money. I installing this then found out how bad a product it is and having to uninstall it get my refund, then ordering The Shelix. The problem with this planer head is the wood comes out very uneven, kind of like hand scraped flooring, but not quite that severe. Spend the extra hundred bucks and buy that Shelix.

This is a game changer for the Dewalt planer . It did take me about 2.5 hours to swap out but well worth the aggravation with my giant hands lol . Definitely recommend.

Very impressive! The installation instructions that came with the cutter are excellent. Installation took about an hour - very straight forward step-by-step procedure with detailed pictures to guide you. The new blades slice through very old wood which the DeWalt blades wouldn't cut. It's also much quieter than the standard straight blades. I'm looking forward to many years of planing. Excellent value compared to other spiral cutters!

Hard to bite the bullet on a $500 cutter head for a $600 planar, but it was well worth it.1. No more waste at board ends from the straight cut head chomping deeper.2. Planar runs so much faster now when working a board I had to move it to a different breaker as it now can pull over 20 Amps.3. Cherry, Oak, and Ash are no issue for this head to hack 1/16" off 7" wide boards.4. I replaced planar's exhaust fan at same time, and with this cutter's smaller blades the debris exiting is much smaller/finer than with the straight cutter, so I'm betting the planar's fan will last a lot longer.

Works like I was expecting, but some craftsmen may not expect the finish when they apply a stain/varnish to the planned wood, I like it, all segmented planning knives have the same finish, almost like hand planned, if not, get the sander out,,

Everything about this item is perfect. Our production way faster now. the noise is nothing compared with before.