Anyone who has done some DIY will have had to face up to some basic woodwork at some stage. Shaving a bit of wood off a door to make it fit without catching, or taking the edge off a replacement floorboard to make it a perfect fit are typical woodworking jobs.
These tasks require a tool called a plane. The tool had a chisel like blade which is slightly proud of a flat metal base. As you slide the place across a piece of wood, the blade cuts into it very slightly and the resulting wood shaving is ejected through a slot in the metal base. It typically curls up into a roll on the other side and is blown off.
Repeated passes of the place shaves millimeter by millimeter of thickness off the wood, so it is a precise way of thinning a piece of wood to make it fit perfectly. Manually shaving off wood can be a big job if you are considering anything more than a small job, and while elbow grease is admirable it is not always the cleverest option.
Electric planers are the power tool equivalent of the traditional manual plane. These tools can save hours of back and forth action, by slicing through the wood with rotating blades and mains electric power. For any larger job they will be the only sensible option, unless you have a lot of space time on your hands or are a real purest.
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