Customer Reviews

Powermatic 1791210 Model 15S Deluxe 15-Inch 3-Horsepower 230-Volt 1-Phase Planer with Spiral Cutterhead and Digital Readout

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

 

 

I waffled between buying the high-end Jet planer and the Powermatic 15HH (both with Byrd Helical Cutters) and ended up buying the Powermatic. The unit arrived with the packaging in good condition.

I started working through the assembly/test process and it rapidly became apparent that Powermatic has lost the Quality they were known for. What I've found:

1. The built-in lift rods seemed great at first glance. And while they might work for a fork-lift, they won't work with a shop crane - the rollers on top of the motor interfere with the webbing.

2. Removing the pulley cover revealed about 1/2 cup of belt shavings in the bottom - obviously it had been turned on, and just as obviously, no one checked to see if the pullys were aligned right. The motor pulley was 1" (!!!) out of plane and the motor mounting bracket (which is welded to the frame) was not horizontal - I had to shim up two of the mounting bolts almost 1/4" to get it parallel. (by the way, all but one of these are hidden inside the machine, so you are doing some painful contortions to get to these bolts.

3. The casters on the base are not the same height and are not adjustable. I end up shimming it up.

4. You can't add the extension tables unless you add washers to the mounting bolts - the bolt torque throws the tables out of alignment.

5. All the remaining roller, blade, chip deflector, etc settings were according to the manual, however, it simply would not plane. The wood runs in to the serrated in feed roller and makes a hard stop. The in feed roller simply chews away the wood until you turn it off. After several hours of tinkering, here's what it took to get it to work:

5a. table rollers must be ~.02 *above* table (were originally set below table). If they are lower than this, the feed roller pushes the lumber down and it jams in the feed roller opening on the table. NOTE: when you tighten the set-screws, the table rollers drop about 0.03", so you have to start high and feel your way into the right final setting.

5b. feed roller tension had to be backed off 3 full turns (all 4 adjusters) - original settings were so high that it simply mashed the lumber (red oak) so that it catches in the table roller slot.

5c. had to raise the chip deflector to 0.04" above recomended setting.

5d. for me, the table rollers were the key to eliminating snipe.

After it's up and running, here are the good points:

1. You can tweak it to be snipe-free. That is wonderful!
2. The cuts are mirror smooth - no tearout at all.
3. Lots of power.
4. Quiet. Really quiet. You have to look for chips in the dust collection to make sure it's planing.

Unfortunately, I have to wonder what other hidden flaws are embedded in places I can't see. And, honestly, it is so sensitive to minor (as in 0.005" is the difference between working great and not working at all) adjustments that I'm not sure how it will work over a large set of wood species. If you have to tweak it for each one, it will be a nightmare.

Final minor annoyances:
1. Powermatic used every different kind of fastener possible on this. Most high end products standardize to a few so you don't have to have all of your tools out to work on it.

2. The finish is the usual poor Powermatic finish - doesn't cover all of the casting, and over-spray on what should be machined surfaces (like the table tops).

3. There seems to be a lot of slop in the table height adjustment - there is about 1/8 revolution of slack when you are adjusting it. That means you always have to back off past the desired depth setting, then advance to where you want it to take the slack out before you lock the table.

4. The casters don't pivot. The only way to turn it is to drag it. Not a big deal if it's fixed, but I tend to move mine around a lot.

5. Ergonomics are bad. Table height adjustment is on the opposite side of the table locks, so you have to walk around the machine/lumber to lock/unlock it.

6. I just don't like power cables dangling to the control box. I'd rather have them in the chasis with a big kill switch and no exposed wiring runs.

My first Powermatic investment was an 8" planer, which had/has similar problems. I assumed it was just a fluke and bought this. So now I know, it's not a fluke, Powermatic has either lost the recipe or just doesn't care.

Stay away from the 'Gold Standard', it's really just 'Mediocre Mustard'

Machine was well packaged, easy to set up and running within one and a half hours. Finish on an eight foot x twelve inch piece of hickory was almost as smooth as a drum sander with almost no chatter. A very very very small bit of tear out ocurred on a nasty knot. I ran over 500 feet of red oak and was pleased with the quality of the finish and dead on consistency of depth of cut. The in and out feed tables are excellent and well worth an increase in price. Rollers leave some marring on softer woods but this can be adjusted and I have not found the need to do so. A single 220grit pass with a r/o sander cleaned up the marks on some soft maple.
Another reviewer mentioned their dissapointment with the spiral blades. I have yet to cut enough to see how they hold their sharpness but am pleased to date. The spiral blades reduce noise levels but not enough to make it a selling point.
One of the gibs(one of the twelve curved plates which holds down each of the three blades) was defective. The repair took only minutes--getting the part was a bear, took three and a half weeks with me having to call and be a pest. I had to go through the seller and not powermatic. On that note the tech support at powermatic was more than helpful. I am pleased by their performance--they seem to cut smoother than the traditional straight blade.
Mobility of machine is a breeze. There are hidden sliding handles which are to be used rather than the feed table for gripping, nice touch.
The digital readout works fine but could certainly be improved in the user friendly department. I find programming the scale more taxing than it ought to be. This should be thought out better on future models.
Snipe is truly minimal--though it is there, perhaps a 64th. Occurs on first and last 4 inches of board I have little or no problem with this factor.

If the machine runs this well in five years-with proper care, I will be very pleased.

It seems that this planer was not tested thouroughly before being distributed. The digital scale has to be re-calibrated after being turned off and back on. The locking casters don't lock. The serrated infeed roller leaves marks on softer woods on light passes. The disposable knives are very poor quality and leave valleys in the planed material along the length of the boards. Both sets of knives I tried were completely dull after less than 300 board feet of planing. The flexible blades are self gauging but are difficult to wrestle into place. These results were after checking all factory settings with micrometer.

Machine came well packaged, but needing adjustments and alignments to blades. Snipe was very pronounced and as of yet I have been unable to reduce it much. I will eventually call Powermatic for advice on reducing the snipe or having a technician look over the problem. At present, I would not recommend this product.

I will skip over most of the favorable aspects of this machine as others already have mentioned them and I find them to be correct in their comments. After reading all the reviews before mine, I was questioning my need to spend my money on a Powermatic Planer and not have a great product. I went to a local supplier and looked over the machine and asked a few questions. They had 8 units of the 15S in stock and had them for 3 months without selling a one! They also had 8 units of the 15HH with the Byrd Helical cutter head and only two were left! They explained some of the complaints I mentioned on the previous reviews were mostly due to improper setup and that they would set the machine up for me if I could wait a few days. I wasn't willing to wait and took a 15HH home.
The tables, rollers, etc. were well protected in a coating that was very easy to remove. The directions for assembly and setup were easy to follow and the electrical hookup was of no concern for me other that the fact you will need to supply your own 220V plug to match your outlets. The Depot was closed and I had to wait till morning to make this puppy run. My dust collection system is in the attic of my shop and is fairly quiet but still louder than the "noise" produced by the 15HH while planing. This unit makes my old Belsaw (circa 1967) planer sound like a DC-3 during take off!
The 15S comes with a digital readout that must be an improved version over the fore-mentioned units in the previous reviews. The floor model I looked at had no problem retaining height information when turned off, table moved, and then turned back on. The unit always read the proper height. Looking at the 15HH (not sold on this site) with the Byrd Cutter Head, I was impressed with the fact that the 94 square carbide cutters could be rotated 3 times exposing 4 cutting surfaces. That's like getting 3 extra sets of blades! AND Powermatic includes 10 extra cutters should you nick a few! Obviously The Byrd head jacks the price up a few hundred bucks, but the simplicity of the cutters always being aligned and easily rotated with the supplied tool AND all the positive comments on the web woodworking forums, I went for the 15HH instead of the 15S. They are the exact same machines except for the head and one other little thing, the 15HH does NOT include the digital readout. Other after market DRO's will fit and the Powermatic DRO is available as an accessory.
I decided I could live with the built in scale on the post that is VERY accurate, a minor inconvenience in trading up to a superior cutter head. After planing 250 board feet of FAS 1" cherry to ¾", I had 160 gallons of wood chips and the smoothest planed wood I have ever seen. I also decided to purchase the Powermatic digital read out after the fact. I was tired of bending over to see those little scale lines on the post and always checking my boards with a caliper. My knees and back are a lot happier too. By the way, my DRO retains the table height setting when turned off.
Chip ejection is GREAT. I only had a little bit of a mess when I neglected to turn the dust collector on. O.... and one time the collector over flowed, what a mess cleaning that up! Keep an eye on your collection system and you will be a happy camper. Make sure your 4" hose is grounded. The amount of chips exiting the planer produces plenty of static electricity, enough to throw a spark at you while retrieving small pieces from the out feed table. The 45-degree angle of the dust chute is fine and the dust hose is never an issue. (I had a non-grounded plastic quick connector attached to the blast gate)
Snipe and roller tracks were at first most noticeable. After spending time to read the manual and making a few adjustments along the way, the roller marks are now only noticeable on soft wood while making runs thru the planer less than 1/16" passes but even then I can sand those out by hand with 80 grit paper. The snipe took a little longer to work on (sometimes adjusting the wrong roller) but I now have about a .001" snipe on the cherry, a little heavier, .0025" on the soft woods. Snipe will ALWAYS be a bi-product of any planer. If you have an overhead drum sander (that you don't really need with the Byrd Cutter Head), your snipe will not be of any concern. In most cases hand sanding makes those snipes unnoticeable. For stile and rail work, I cut the 2 ½" snipes off before routing.
The wheels on my unit were locking fine for the first few days and then stopped locking. Removing the motor access cover exposed the adjusters for the wheel locks. A few minutes spent on moving the stop cones solved that problem and 3 weeks later the locks are still locking.
All in all, I am very pleased with the 15HH. Adjustments are part of life in woodworking equipment. I can't expect a machine such as this to travel (from China unfortunately, but so is everything else) in a cargo hold, truck, fork lift, my trailer AND roll all over the shop and be in perfect running setup out of the crate. Besides, making all those adjustments just introduces me to my new planer! The Byrd Cutter Head, by the way eliminates the need for knife adjustments! Spend the extra money if you can. You will not regret it!!

I have this planer in a wood working lab at a university. I got it because bench-top planers can only handle 13" wide stock and a typical guitar body blank is wider than that.

The Powermatic is heavily built and I assumed it would hold up well under hard use. It is indeed heavy and the quality of the machining is pretty good. Also, the spiral cutter seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out well.

The machine has gotten relatively little use because of problems with the feeder. We've had it apart, adjusted it repeatedly and never been able to get it to work well. Stock often jams, requiring that you turn the machine off and lower the table to free the jammed board. Also, the serrated infeed roller leaves marks on soft stock if you are making a light cut.

I talked with their tech support and was just told that I needed to adjust the feed rollers again. Not much help.

I have a new planer on order and will be glad to see this one leave. It has a lot of potential. However, after about 2 years, I have been unable to get it to work satisfactorily. Too bad as I had really hoped for better.

Unless you really need to handle stock wider than 13", try a DeWalt or a Delta bench top planer. I've gotten much better results and much more use from those than from the Powermatic. The DeWalt benchtop planer is the gold standard in my opinion.

I purchased this machine several years ago. Presently it costs $800 more than the Delta model.
Things to consider.
What do you do when you nick a blade? Can't sharpen it on my Tormek T7.
Two speeds 16 and 20. I can't tell a difference.
The Delta's top speed is 30 fpm. That is a big difference in performance.
When planing long boards you have to adjust infeed and outfeed tables on the Powermatic.
The Delta allows companies to make permanent infeed and outfeed tables.
Mobile base is inline and doesn't allow you to turn easily.

Just things to consider. I agree if you are going Powermatic the HH design is probably the better choice.
Bobby Stanley