Pear Wood  

We bought
the Dewalt at my last shop. I liked almost everything about it. Cleverly designed and apparently well made. I removed the depth stop (far left in photo, vertical threaded pin) because it wasn't capable of complete accuracy and seemed to me to be a potential hazard to the vertical travel screws. . .
Reversible blades expensive -- can't be sharpened, and dull fairly quickly. Machine was about $400 US four years ago. REQUIRES a good dust collector and hose, I believe; has a built-in dust expeller to help.
For complete satisfaction, wood must be flattened on a Jointer before planing, of course.
Wood hazard list seems to include a LOT of species. Any air-borne dust can be an irritant, and almost any substance can be an allergen to someone or other. Such lists must by definition include a subject if there is even one reported incident, no ?
That said, I had forgotten that I find (as others do) some reaction to mahogany dust -- and just cutting a sheet of fir plywood can release enough hard, brittle resin glue (or is it the wood ?) to annoy my throat a little. I an notoriously indifferent to/tolerant of airborne woodshop hazards, in general. Grew up in the era when no one wore masks or goggles. I wear large eyeglasses and have never had an eye problem in the shop.
Some fire-retardant MDF we cut in the shop bothered everyone; then we went online (or something) and got confirmation of that. No warning by the supplier. Bad stuff; be warned.

Snipe
On a planer, gently lift (take the weight off) the wood as it is beginning to feed, and again as it is exiting the machine. Remember, there is an infeed pressure roller and an outfeed ditto; both of these hold the wood flat to the bed during planing, but because neither pressure roller can be closer to the cutter head than a couple of inches, the hold-down effect of one roller is lost during the first and last couple of inches of travel. You need to manually make up for this lack.
If the wood is heavy enough, and properly supported by infeed and outfeed tables or rollers, snipe may not occur. And, if you lift too vigorously, you'll have worse than a snipe: a gouge will be created as you overcome the remaining pressure roller. So go easy.
Sorry for the interruption.

Thanks SDR, I've read that...
Thanks SDR, I've read that after market blades are avaialable for the dewalt (see link below, there are others too) if not and I had to rely on the expensive disposables I would probably pass on the purchase. The use of aftermarket blades voids the warranty however two sets comes with the purchase here and seeing as they reverse by the time I get around to buying another set the warranty will be void anyway.
When you say an extraction system is required is it really that bad? I'd be putting through about 10 metres of timber a week and removing c. 10mm at most
The list of species claimed to be irritants is very long but perhaps it includes those to which only some people have a reaction. Like you I'm hardly bothered by most things (except the blackbean, which everyone is) and put it down to having been raised on a farm, so many kids these days seem allergic to everything. I do though use all the safety gear.
Just want to say sorry (again) for thread hijack but also how much I appreciate the forum and all the good people on it. I'm really bad at bookmarking sites but know that any links I need to go back to are always on here.
http://www.infinitytools.com/HSS-Knives-For-DeWalt-735-Planer/productinf...