Customer Reviews

Powermatic 1120003 Model PM15 15-Inch 5-Horsepower Planer/Molder, 230-Volt 1-Phase

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The machine is absolutely heavy duty. Although, there are a few things that I have found issue with:

1) machine doesn't work well with wide poplar boards. I have a heavy duty dust collection system connected to it but the poplar creates long strands from the wide boards. These strands clog up the exhaust chute causing the shavings to back up onto the outfeed roller and stop the boards from continuing through the planer part way through a feed. Basically have to lower the table and pull the board out to clean the strands out. This binding of the strands has tore up the outfeed urethance rollers to the point of no return. ***update: I was able to take the rollers off the machine and turn the urethane down on an engine lathe to straighten the urethane after much use. (note: high rpm, low feed rate and a touch with sand paper when finished) Works better than new now. I should be able to do this a few times before having to buy new ones. By the way, the new rollers are pretty cheap to replace.***

2) Wish the table length was longer or adaptable to adding an extension. Would be nice.

The machine is very easy to work with and work on. The molding feature is great and works well. I've done all the trim in my new house with this machine. Hope to have a long future with it in my business.

When this planer arrived at my shop I couldn't wait to get it out of the crate and plugged in. I was pleasantly surprised to see how heavy the machine was built, its beefy stature screamed, throw anything at me I can plane it, and after some adjusting it did. I ran pine and white oak threw it, and it produced a wonderful finish on both. The one problem I have had is trying to plane exceptionally wide boards. For some reason if I plane a board 10" wide or better it machine has some trouble feeding the board threw. I found that with some adjustment of the spring tension on the urethane infeed and outfeed rollers this can be reduced but not completely eliminated. Other than this the machine runs great. It is easy and safe to operate, and fun to use. This planer is another fine example of Powermatic's expertise in building heavy-duty home shop machinery.

About eight months ago I purchased the powermatic PM-15 from a local tool supply store. I have loved using this fine machine for planing and moulding, and it has preformed flawlessly, that is until I got my first paying customer. A gentleman that lives near me brought me a load of roughsawn birch to plane down and run 50' of crown and 50' of panel moulding for him. While most of it (80 percent) came out nice, most of the pieces had some tearout, and 1 piece of crown was completly trashed. What a nightmare! I was suprised at this because I've run poplar, red oak, and pine through this machine with very little tearout (mainly around knots and hard areas). I can't fault the machine, I suppose, but I wrote this to warn any future millwrights about working birch.

Before I go on with my review of this product, let me say, from my personnel experience, Amazon is a customer oriented operation and will stand behind the products they sell.

I received my PM15 Powermatic planer about a month a go, the unit was delivered in good condition. It took me two to three hours to go through the adjustments and the only discrepancy I found was the table on one side was .006 lower than the other, the measurement was taken in reference to the cutter head and not the cutter blades, however, this I think I can live with.

Last weekend I ran 200 bd. ft. of rough swan poplar through the planer and experienced the same problem reported on feedback Dec.29,2003. I contacted Powermatic Tech. Services, and the Powermatic Rep. told me that the chip breaker was out of adjustment and that the function of the chip breaker was to break-up the chips coming off the cutters so it can clear the planer. When the chip breaker is out of adjustment the cuttings are long and stringy and will clog the unit and eventually get into out feed roller, resulting in a jam. I adjusted the chip breaker and now the planer works great.

P.S. Be sure your vacumm system can keep up.

I bought this planer as an upgrade to my little 12" delta planer, i thought this would be perfect, a planer AND molder all in one. Boy was i WRONG,,,,, this thing sucks!!! I am yet to use it as a molder, i haven't owned it a week yet and i am ready to sell it or give it away!!! Basically, the first call of duty for this machine was about 20 lengths of 1 x 8 x 8 poplar. Should be a simple task right? To get them to 3/4" dimension from 1 1/8" rough took about ohhhh 2 days!!!! I figured a monster like this could easily take off 3/32" every pass, nope!!! i couldn't get through a whole board without it stopping, for some reason the rollers would just stop feeding it through i would have to lower the bed and start all over, me and 2 other guys could not pull the board from the out-feed side for NOTHING!! The only way i could get even halfway successful passes was if i only tried to take off about 1/64" every pass, so you do the math!!! that took forever!!! The manual says adjust roller tension, roller heights etc and i adjusted it from one extreme to the next and every setting in between and this thing will NOT work as a reliable planer!!!! the only good thing is, when it does actually feed the wood through it comes out REALLY SMOOTH and its easy to almost have no snipe. I don't know why this machine wont work properly, i think dust collects under the out-feed roller and causes it to bind but i have a 1 1/2 hp JET vacuum attached to it with about 10' of hose and yes some sawdust and chips do build up under the hood, but why??? I have used other planers,,, even much smaller ones that didn't have this problem. I am sooo furious , after about 30 calls to customer service,, they basically quote verbatim whats in the manual,,, then finally during the last call the guy in tech support flat out said '' ya just got to keep on trying and eventually you'll get it,, just keep adjusting'' WTF????? Everyone complains about the made in china stuff but as soon as i sell this i am going to buy a shop fox!!! DO NOT BUY THIS AS A STAND ALONE PLANER!!!