Customer Reviews

Powermatic 1792000K Model PM 2000 3 Horsepower Cabinet Saw with 50-Inch Accu-Fence, 2 Cast Iron Extension Wings, Table Board, and Legs, 230-Volt 1 Phase

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I recently purchased a Powermatic 2000 saw, 3hp, 1ph, with a 50" fence. The saw arrived in excellent condition in a big sturdy crate along with several heavy boxes containing the fence and rails. A few comments on this saw. The fit and finish of the saw are excellent. The cast iron top and wings are ground to a fine polish and match up well. The cast iron top on this saw is much larger than that of the Powermatic 66 and the Delta Unisaw. After uncrating and assembling the wings to the top I checked the alignment of the miter slots to the arbor and found it to be less than 0.01" right out of the crate. There was virtually no arbor runout. The arbor is a standard 5/8", but the arbor nut is huge, about double the width of the one on a Unisaw and much thicker. Instead of using a cheap stamped wrench, Powermatic sends you a 27mm box end wrench to use on the arbor nut. Even with the big nut the arbor still accomodates a 13/16" stacked dado head. In addition, the saw has an arbor lock which locks the arbor in place while changing blades. The lock mechanism works well and is fairly sturdy, but I'm a little concerned about its long term durability. The dust collection assembly for this saw is excellent, with the dust being mostly collected immediately below the blade by a "hood" with a dust collection hose hooked to it which is in turn hooked to the dust collection port on the back of the saw. The key to this system is to always run your dust collector whenever you have the saw on, even if its for one or two little cuts, otherwise you'll end up with dust in the cabinet and will have to vacuum that out yourself. The Powermatic 2000 uses a wide flat drive belt instead of the 3 v-belts found on a 66 or Unisaw. The single wide, flat belt seems to work well, but it will be interesting to see how it performs over the long haul. The fence for the 2000 is the same as the one used on the 66, 72A and 74 (in fact my boxes didn't say anything about fitting the 2000) and uses slightly heavier tube than the Biesemeyer and much heavier rails. While the saw itself is made in Taiwan, the fence is stamped "Made in USA". The motions on the saw are very smooth and work effortlessly. The lock knobs for the motions are big in diameter and heavy and work great! The saw cabinet is stamped steel, but the base is cast iron like the old Unisaws were. The On/Off switch is pretty cool and is another massive piece of hardware. The On button is inside a donut shaped red Off button. When the saw is plugged in the On button glows green. The saw starts smoothly and runs really quietly. Now for some of the minor issues...the built in mobile base system works nicely, however it only raises the cast iron base off the floor about 3/16" if that. So unless you have a perfectly level concrete floor you may have some issues moving the saw around. Plus you run the risk of damaging the legs on the extension table due to the lack of floor clearance. I would have like to seen the saw go up 1/2" clear of the floor. One plus is that all four wheels under the base swivel so you can move the saw in any direction you want. The splitter/anti-kickback system is a European style which curves part way around the blade. It also raises and lowers and tilts with the blade which is great. The minor downfall with it is taking it on and off the saw is a little cumbersome since the throat plate and splitter must be put on at the same time and its a little tough to get big hands under the throat plate to throw the lever that locks the splitter in place. Another concern at this time is the lack of availability of accessories. The throat plate for this saw is huge! The saw still has the same amount of clearance ahead of the throat plate as the Unisaw, but the plate extends back a lot further than is does in the Unisaw or 66. At this point I can't purchase a dado insert for the saw, nor can I purchase a zero clearance insert, so I'll have to make some. The stock throat plate uses a total of five allen screws for leveling, three in the front, and two in the rear. Overall this is an excellent saw and I think that it will probably replace the 66 in the future as Powermatic's primary saw for the serious hobbiest or professional user of 10" saws.

The first PM2000 shipped by Amazon arrived defective. Here are a list of the problems:

1. When raising the blade the whole trunnion would wander towards he fence by at least .020.

2. The trunnion would twist counter - clockwise on a horizontal plane causing the rear of the blade to wander away from the fence (and the front towards the fence) when raising the blade. Try keeping this one square to the miter slot. Not cool. This was also off by at least .020 front to rear.

3. The nylon shoulders on the fence were far from flat.

4. The fence measurement mark line was in the shape of a thin "V". The V was about 1/16" wide at the top.

5. The insert plate was missing the adjust screws.

6. When WMH sent out the replacement screws it was impossible to get the plate flat with the table.

How did this unit make it out of their factory?

WMH and Amazon were nice enough to send out a whole new saw, and pick up the bad one free of charge, so I can't complain much about their customer service. The new saw is good all around, no twisting etc., and the whole setup was much more accurate out of the box. Even the insert plate was flat to the top. However, it was shipped out without the hardware needed to mount the fence rails to the table top and extension table.

I'm going on a month without a fully functional saw thanks to unacceptable quality control on the part of WMH. I'd also like to mention that this is an incredible hassle. Shipping, unloading, assembling X2, disassembling, disposal of all the cardboard and the pallet X2, multiple calls to customer service. Not cool and incredibly time consuming.

WMH/Powermatic customers deserve better. WMH Tool Group needs to try harder.

Just purchased this saw as an upgrade to a Delta Contractor's Tablesaw. This is sooo much nicer!! Quality throughout. But the fit needed a couple of adjustments:
1. The fence lockdown handle is supposed to screw into the cam lever. Mine came un-tapped! The hole was there but no threads. I could have asked Powermatic for a replacement lever, but I chose to tap the threads myself. Very easy and a quick fix.
2. The molded plastic motor cover needed to have the top plastic hinge enlarged. It would not line up with the steel hinge part mounted on the saw. Again, an easy fix with a drill bit.
Other than these minor gliches, this is a super saw. And getting it off the shipping pallets was a snap with the built-in casters. Normally you have to have a couple fiends help heft it from the pallet. Not this saw. I layed out the 2x4 crate side supports and added a piece of plywood to make a ramp, cranked down the casters and just rolled it off single-handedly! Sweet!

I gave this rating 4 stars due to the above problems, but really its 4 3/4. Don't hesitate to buy this saw because it's not a 5 star rating.

This is my first table saw. I bought it after reading previous Amazon reviews and doing some reading of reviews in the woodworking magazines. I was very careful to make sure I did my homework, so I was aware of the saw's attributes before I clicked "Order" during Amazon's ordering procedure. Delivery came with the packaged saw secured to and sitting atop a clean, sturdy pallet. The freight company, I was told, added a pallet which its forklift could fit at the warehouse. The freight company brought the saw in a truck with a lift on the back end and used a pallet truck to roll the saw directly into my garage. I used a 1-ton chain hoist and tow straps to lift the saw slightly, and I had my not-so-strong wife pull the pallets clear of the saw. After the saw was safely lowered to the floor, I followed instructions and everything fit in place according to instructions. One should be patient in fitting the cast iron extensions and the table extension (wood drilling required). I wired the machine to a circuit, using using 2 15A plugs (1 for the saw-switch cord and the other for the extension cord I rigged up), a 15A connector (for the extension cord), 12-3 water-resistant wiring (to make an extension cord), and a 20A receptacle. For the circuit regular Romex works with a 2-pole 20A circuit breaker on my GE workshop subpanel. I carefully read the instructions for operation. I also studied a couple of woodworking books I have and now I am ready to work on some projects (I just retired). Ahead of time, my biggest worry was over the delivery process. Eagle Freight did a great job! I am very pleased. PS: use rust preventative to maintain that beautiful shiny cast-iron table top.

This is a wonderful saw with many fine, well designed features - casters, rifing knife, big flat shiny table, good dust collecting, convenient easy-off-deliberate-on switch, etc.

However I must beef a bit about quality control. The cast aluminum throat plate was not flat, and event though I attempted to bend it straight, it remained annoyingly curved. Powermatic is sending me a new throat plate. In addition when I assembled the fence tube and its supporting steel angle rail I was unable to get all of the holes in the the rail to line up with those in the tube. I ended up drilling one of the holes to a larger diameter and everything went together. Still, for a price in excess of two grand I can't accept these problems. At the same time, I have to admit that there are certainly a myriad of features that would measure up to any quality control criteria.

My saw has the long extension table on it with the two legs at the far end. In what is truly a bonehead design decision at Powermatic the legs are meant to be screwed into the chip board material of the table top and its end apron. Due to a bonehead move of my own (related to the very small clearance of the adjustable casters), the screws pulled out almost immediately. I remounted the legs about a foot from the ends where two of the four screws for each leg could be driven into the Baltic birch plywood side aprons of the table.

Having gotten around what I hope are only start-up problems, I anticipate that this saw will serve me well for the rest of my life and might even be a valued item in my estate.

Would have given this saw five stars but the lack of attention to details knocks it back and maybe even more if my mood that day would have been any less. First off the extension table had a serious bubble warp in the middle of about 1/16" also warped where it meets the cast iron table. Secondly the sheet metal base cabinet's mounting bolts were all loose where it bolts to the cast iron base allowing the whole upper half to move and not be level. Thirdly after mounting an Incra 32" fence to the miter gauge I discovered that the pivoting pin/hole had alot of slop allowing the fence to have excessive flex.Fourth the lower cast iron base is not touching evenly on all four corners. Now for the good, the dust collection is good as compared to my old delta, the shaft lock is a great feature, and the riving knife should be on all saws. Also like the magnetic safety key which when removed disables the saw. The saw is very heavy (600#)and stable and the new serpintene flat belt does away with the troubles of a three belt system (equal stretch,noise,vibration), it's like going from a multi v belt setup on older cars to the more upto date belts on modern automobiles.
Powermatic I hope you're reading this post!!!!

PS- You will without question need three strong folks to remove or just slide this saw off the pallet(without extension wings).

My last saw was the Powermatic 66. This is an intirely different saw. Setup was a snap. Only a few slight adjustments were needed even though I used a micromiter to check it out. Runs very smoothly. The new dust collection is one of the main reasons I upgraded to this saw. I am not dissapointed. It's very quiet and has a very good miter gague. Great saw at a great price. Only porblem is that it didn't come with a dado table insert and I havn't been able to find one to purchase.

I just purchased this saw and love it. Saw came in 5 or 6 boxes, directions were easy to understand. I put this saw together by myself in about 1 1/2 hours. It took an appliance dolly and a buddy to get it off the crate, but once in my shop, things were easy. I used a 4 roller stand to help hold the pieces up while I installed the bolts. Everything went together well, except for the extension table. The bolts they sent were only 3/4 inch long, and on the back side it calls for 1-1/4 bolts. I just ran down to the lumberyard and bought them. The only other problem I had was with the casters. Two were hitting the floor and two were a little higher. After I got the rails on the saw, I tipped the saw up to see what was under there. All I needed to do was crank down the casters, then crank them back up to fix the problem. I have a wood floor, and the casters raise the saw plenty to move around. Saw just uses a 20 AMP 220 breaker, I hard wired it in and everything works great. I'm glad I spent the extra cash to get this saw. Now if they just had some accessories for it.

I've had several table saws over the years, each one an upgrade from the previous, but all of them contractor's saws. I'm glad I waited until this beauty became available before I purchased a cabinet saw. The PM 2000 speaks of quality everywhere you look. Fit and finish are great. Everything is well engineered and well executed. I can't imagine this tool not lasting several generations. The riving knife, easily removable guard, and built-in castors are icing on the cake. If I could think of one small criticizism it would be the attachment of the legs to the extension table. The screws are small, and putting them into particle board does not offer enough strength. The problem is easily solved by beefing up the underside of the table with some half inch plywood and using larger screws. If you're looking for a cabinet saw anywhere in this price range, look no further.

The saw arrived promplty in numerous boxes, all solidely mounted on top of a pallet.
The carrier that tool king used did provide a lift gate at no charge.

After unbolting the saw from the pallet, I was able to use the built-in caster system to roll the saw all the way to its final location. Bringing the castor down is a little tedious as each turn of the wheel doesn't do much but this was am effortless manouver.

It took me 2 days to completely setup the saw, run the electrical and the dust collection. The hardest part was aligning the front rail accurately. The only tuning I had to do on the saw was to level the insert with the top of the saw and to setup the fence. All other settings where dead accurate right out of the box (at least to an 0.01 accuracy).

Running the saw is a real pleasure. It is not loud and there is absolutely no vibrations.
I didn't find any piece of wood in my shop that provided any kind of resistance. Everything cuts like butter and the cuts have a glass smooth finish ready for glue up.

My best surprise was the dust collection. It works much better than I expected. With my setup, the only time I see some dust is when removing a small shaving or when using a zero clearence insert.

Changing blade is definitively an easy operation with the blade lock and the massive wrench provided.
I read some review complaining about how difficult it is to put the instert back when the riving knives are in place. I would have to disagree, this is a very simple operation.

I have very few complaints.

The dust collection port is at the back of the cabinet making it impossible to install my HTC folding outfeed table.

I would also have liked a dust collection port on the guard.

Finally, leveling the insert or adjusting the riving knife holder call for a 3mm allen wrench which of course was the one missing from my collection. Providing the wrench would have saved me a trip to the store.