Customer Reviews

Powermatic 54A Deluxe 6-Inch Jointer with Quick-Set Knives

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Needed a jointer with a longer bed so after about 3 weeks of deciding I bought this one. I read about 50-60 reviews on this machine on different forums and never saw anything but the highest rating. I have read about how heavy it was and people say get 3 or 4 others to help lift it. Bull! It's heavy but me and my wife both 62 years old struggled a bit but got it together in about an hour. I liked the delivery of it right in my garage. In came on a pallet the truck had a liftgate and a hand operate forklift. Now you may not be as lucky and have easy accesss to you shop but for me it was sweet. The machine works like a dream. All i had to do was align the fence a little. I did get the mobile base which i would recommened even though i thought it was a bit pricy. But it was made in the USA.

I bought my Powermatic Jointer 3 years ago from a local dealer. After a very simple set up, and some minor adjustments to the fence mechanism, the machine was ready to work within an hour. I use the jointer for truing one or two sides of sawn hardwood in preparing stock for a project. I could not be happier with the results. This unit has stayed in adjustment, the fence is easy to use, it is very quiet, and the dust collection chute works. The extra length of the bed makes working with long material very easy. This Powermatic jointer continues to look brand new, and continues to work like brand new. I am very happy with this purchase.

This machine is awesome! It was easy to assemble and most settings were dead on from the factory. It has significant mass and the long bed make edge jointing long boards a breeze. No more cutting boards to short lengths. I changed the wiring to 230-volts because my shop has a floor outlet already for 230-volts. The wiring was easy to get to and the wiring diagram simple to read. I would recommend this jointer to anyone.

I sat aside plenty of time to assemble and true this machine when I put it in my shop. Assembly was quick and easy. Instructions were excellent. When I set ou tot true the beds and fence I found everything to be DEAD ON from the factory. DEAD ON.

Easy to adjust and has plenty of power.

It works flawlessly and I have absolutely no complaints. 2 years of running it nearly every day and I every time I run a board through I am glad spent the extra $$ on the yellow machine.

Only wish I had bought the 8" version.

I just bought the Powermatic 54A used. It's heavy (fence alone weighs about 50 pounds), stable and solid. I needed to tune it up as the prior owner apparantly never did. Once everything was trued up, it mills edges and surfaces very nicely. The long beds are a true luxury in this class. I looked at the Jet and found it toy-like.

I will append this review later after I've worked with the machine for a while but I'm expecting great things. My only minor complaint is the mechanism to lower and raise the infeed table. I wish it had a handwheel instead of the lever.

Good 'ole Powermatic - won't let you down.

March, 2011 - Still love my PM 54A. No complaints or regrets. And I added a spiral cutting head. It's so cool!

My wife always talks me into buying the best tools possible. She says "you get what you pay for". I was looking at the Grizzly and the Jet machines but decided to go with the Powermatic. The estimated delivery was 7-12 days and it was delivered in three. It was attached to a pallet and the packing was in great shape. The driver dropped it in my garage. The hardest part was moving the top portion down to the basement. All the parts were enclosed and assembly only took about an hour. I didn't have to adjust a thing. This is my second Powermatic tool. I also bought their mortiser. This is an excellent machine. I highly recommend Powermatic tools. The fit and finish are great, all the tapped holes threaded perfectly and there was a minimum of oil on the machined surfaces.

I received this Powermatic 54A Deluxe Jointer delivered at my home in my garage is less than four (4) days from the date of my order. This superlative service from Amazon has become the norm for nearly everything I order from them. The unit arrived relatively well packaged and sustained no apparent damage in transit. This jointer performs well as it is customary for Powermatic woodworking tools. I have a total of four great Powermatic woodworking pieces of equipment all purchased from Amazon. That is why I stick with Powermatic for nearly everything I order for this type of equipment. However, there is one major headache I endured while setting up the jointer and this design flaw is why I gave this unit a 4.0 star rating instead of a 5.0 star rating I might normally have given it.

The Powermatic Operating Instructions and Parts Manual attempts to guide the buyer through Installing the Drive Belt. At the point where the drive belt is installed, it instructs the owner to test for proper belt tension using two fingers to squeeze the belt together and to measure deflection. If too loose, it instructs to loosen the four (4) motor mounting screws and then to "...pull down on the motor to achieve proper tension." (what a joke!) Once pulling the motor "down", the owner it to check deflection again to determine it the belt has proper tension. Clearly this part of the instruction was written by someone who never had to perform this operation because it impossible to simply pull the motor down and "check for tension (prior to tightening the mounting bolts) because in doing so, the motor will rise up again reducing the tension again. Also, because of the location of the motor and its mounting screws, it is nearly impossible to tighten the mounting screws while applying the correct downward force to get the desired belt tension, something that you cannot recheck until the bolts are all tightened, and if the the belt is found to be too loose or too tight, you start all over again.

For a company who prides itself by calling itself "the gold standard since 1921" it baffles me why they didn't take a little more effort to install a motor tensioning screw system that would give the customer the ability to set the tension exactly where it should be PRIOR TO tightening all the mounting screws. The cost of installing such an improvement during the manufacturing process would certainly be less than $10 to $15 and would be well appreciated by the new owner. It is a nightmare the way it is now.

The ball is in your court Powermatic. Show us that the customer is first in your eyes.

I just bought this jointer about a week ago. Reading all the reviews, it seemed like a great product. I was not happy with the delivery service, which was free of charge, but that is the delivery service's problem, not Powermatic's.

The jointer arrived nicely on a pallet and was well packaged. It was heavy but in two boxes, it was easily moved into our basement with 2 guys and a dolly. Upon assembly, I noticed that a few things were kind of disappointing. The four bolt holes for the belt shield did not line up so we had to do some bending. Not very happy that a simple piece like that took us 20 minutes to struggle with when it should have taken 20 seconds to put four small screws in. Not a big deal but it seems like a simple thing they couldn't get right.

The biggest issue I have with the machine is the poor paint job. I know paint is not a big deal when you're talking about wood working but I think it speaks about the quality of construction and design of the product. Just taking it out of the package, the paint started peeling all around the bed and there was some pretty severe bubbling around bolt heads and threaded areas. We were VERY careful when setting it up and when it was all adjusted and ready to go, there were yellow paint chips all over the floor, even before the machine was started up for the first time. This is not the quality I expect when paying $1000 for a top-of-the-line machine. I will not return it simply because of paint but I am not happy about their poor attention to detail (being an engineer myself).

As for the performance, the machine is VERY quiet, very smooth and does a great job. My JET dust collection system is louder than the jointer so I really appreciate how quiet it is. The cutting surface is extremely clean and smooth after jointing and it doesn't seem like the motor gets bogged down much at all, even with a wide white oak piece. Very happy in this regards.

Overall, I like this tool very much and it feels like a very solid machine. Some of the minor details in manufacturing would make me hesitate recommending this to one of my very serious woodworker friends because I know they have high expectations like me. As for the cutting quality and performance, I would recommend this to anyone.

Probably everybody looking at this product is mentally juggling quality, bed length, and bed width. The 54A has two of those, and near as I can tell, there's no way you can get all three without spending a LOT more money.

The thing is built to see repeated heavy use. I'm just a hobbyist, so for me that's overkill. At the same time, it doesn't look like it'll fall out of adjustment unless my garage collapses around it. Every component is of a very high quality. It's remarkably quiet, the quietest tool I have. A second person will be useful to help lift the table onto the stand, but assembly is otherwise straightforward. There are other features Powermatic could have put on this (like simpler belt tensioning, as another reviewer noted), but I think the quality (as opposed to features) will match that of any other machine and it's not missing anything critical. It's just built for use, and to last.

Beyond quality, it seems the remaining tradeoff is bed length vs bed width. I would love a wider bed. Eight inches would be terrific, 10 or 12 would be better. Even now I've got some 8" maple with a warp, and jointing it is going to cost me 2". Other manufacturers offer benchtop jointers in a similar price range that are much wider. That said, I can build up width by making panels. A long (flat) bed is harder to make up for. If you're doing production work where the cost of wasted wood will rapidly overwhelm the savings of a 6" machine, you don't want this. If you never want to make big pieces (tables, doors), you might be happier with a shorter, wider machine. But for me, I'd rather have the length.

Just set up and ran test run on this machine. Came in two large crates in perfect condition. Assembled in almost no time. Did not require a single readjustment. The extra long in and outfeed tables are the reason I bought this. They are flat and coplanar. Very happy with my purchase. Delivery man moved all into my garage. DO find a helper to put it together because it would be very easy to drop and damage the machine trying to do this alone. Appreciated that the machined surfaces were not covered in grease, just light oil so cleanup was easy. Do get the mobile base when you order this, it was very heavy steel with adequate locking wheels - I understand that the contractor who makes the carts is changing. The base on this thing is also heavy, good steel, and you will risk hurting yourself trying to get the fully assembled machine onto a mobile base later. Finally figured out why the weird color--the logo says "The Gold Standard" and this is supposed to be a gold color. My wife said, however, that it reminded her of an infant's... But I'll be happy to add more odd color Powermatic equipment over the years if they are all built like this beauty.