Powermatic 66 adjustment

[Randy Walton]

Because of health problems, I've had a long absence from woodworking and as a result most of my power tools set unused for quite some time. Now as I'm able to do some woodworking I'm spending most of my time getting the equipment back into working order. Seems like there's plenty of problems to take care of. My saw, a 3 hp single phase Powermatic 66 is in really good condition, belts and motor is fine. I ran into this problem when I was building a couple of cutoff sleds for the saw.
After getting the crosscut adjusted and cutting what seems to be a perfect 90", I move on to build a small miter sled for making boxes. After adjusting the blade tilt to 45" and finishing that sled I then returned to blade to 90" and found the blade had moved to the right a bit and no longer matched the slot in the 90" cutoff sled.
It's almost like the arbor with the tiling of the blade. The set screw on the arbor shaft is definitely secure. Any ideas?

[Chris Rosenberger]

I recently had the same problem with my PM66. The blade no longer lined up with the splitter. The arbor set screw felt tight. I moved the arbor back to the proper spot & tightened the set screw tighter. It has not moved since.

[Randy Walton]

I try doing that tomorrow, loosening the set screw and moving the arbove back a bit and retightening. I don't know where there could be any other play in the mount. Thanks!

[Mike Williams]

Randy,

I have a PM66 that I purchased new in 2000. After four years of light use, I stored it at my brother-in-law's for four years (2004-2007) while we were overseas. I know it sat for three years without any use (because he didn't have 230V in his barn). For the last year of storage, he used it lightly. The barn was unheated most of the time in Michigan weather.

When I got it back last year, it received light use for about 6 months. Then last fall, the motor started to get noisy. After some pretty ugly noises, there was a loud metallic clunk, and the blade lost power. I pulled the motor and took it a Baldor-authorized repair shop. The bearing was bad, and had to be replaced. The shop and I put it down to storage in cold weather, gremlins, bad luck, etc. The motor sheave (pulley) was removed at the shop and handed over to me as part of this repair.

When I got the motor back, I reinstalled the sheave with the 3/16" square key on my motor and hung the motor back on the table saw. As I had not removed the table saw top, I lined up the motor and arbor sheaves with a straight edge by feel, tightened the motor sheave set screw, and reinstalled and tensioned the original drive belts.

Everything started up ok, and I was good to go. About a month ago, I started hearing noises again. It didn't take too long before the blade lost power again. This time, I decided to remove the table top and see if the belt alignment was off. I lifted off the table top (thanks to my engine hoist! - and there were no shims under the mounting bolts), and saw the motor sheave was out of alignment. More importantly, it felt loose. The key was missing from the motor shaft. I found the key down at the bottom of the saw, reinstalled it and tightened it up. I rotated it by hand, and could see significant wobble on the motor sheave.

After removing the motor, and taking it, the belts, and the two sheaves to the local power transmission company, we determined that the bore on the original Browning motor sheave was 1/32" larger diameter than the 7/8" Baldor motor diameter. So for eight years, I've had a motor sheave from Powermatic that wasn't correctly sized to the motor. It would work itself loose over time, and I'm sure did not help my blade alignment.

I now have a new set of Browning motor and arbor sheaves with correct bore diameters, and two new Link Belts. So far, everything seems ok again.

[Randy Walton]

Appreciate your input Mike! That's the funny thing about this one, everything sounds fine and the blade runs true when running. It was just the movement of the blade in the saw blade opening after adjusting the tilt and returning to vertical that it seemed to move slightly.
I did remove the arbor set screw, cleaned and reinstalled very firmly today. I plan to check the result after tilting the arbor back and forth tomorrow and see if it returns to the same position as it started.
If not, I hope I can find a service company that field services the Powermatics because it's too heavy to take somewhere.
Randy

[george wilson]

Personally,I have never liked Powermatic equipment,made in USA,or otherwise. When I was in college in 1960,the shop bought a new Powermatic 10" table saw. When the blade was lowered,it didn't go down smoothly,but went down in CLUNK,CLUNK,CLUNK stages of rapid dropping steps. The saw had to be returned.

In Colonial Williamsburg,the cabinet maker who worked in a backup shop,ordered a 20" Powermatic thickness planer,about 1973,made in USA. I had advised him to get another brand. The planer's table got badly jammed when it was planing wood about 1/2" thick.It was jammed so badly that there was a real danger of ripping the teeth off the small bevel gears that operated the elevating screws. They had to send for a factory tech.,since the planer was almost brand new.

There was a big steel chip left on one of the elevating screws that got into one of the nuts,and jammed it up very tight.

Fast forward to last year.The Millwork Shop spent big bucks on an 8" Powermatic jointer. I had urged them to buy a Bridgewood,like mine,which was Taiwan made,but a wonderful jointer. IIRC,it cost me $675.00 in the 80's. Still have it.

The tables on their new jointer were so out of parallel,it was unreal. I had repaired most of their other machinery,so they asked me to see what could be done. I dragged my heavy Brown & Sharp camel back straight edge,with a hand scraped 2" wide edge on it,over to their jointer. I HAD TO PACK 1/8" of shim stock in the dovetails of the outfeed table to get the jointer into decent alignment!!!!!

I urged them to send it back,as it looked like crap with those shims,and they would most likely vibrate loose anyway. For some obscure reason,they kept the stupid thing anyway. I have no idea why.

That's why I don't care for Powermatic equipment,new or old.

On the other hand,another behind the scenes williamsburg shop bought a new Delta 20" bandsaw about 15 years ago. The wheels were so out of round,they had to call a factory tech to come and replace them. That was a USA machine.The bandsaw had stack up shims that had to be removed or added with allen wrenches to use different widths of blades. I think everything on that saw had to be wrench adjusted.

I love my old 1950's Delta,but I would rather have bought an Asian machine than to have that one.

[Joe Jensen]

I bought 5 Powermatic machines new in 1990.
1) PM66 saw, USA made - perfect from day one until I sold it in 2006
2) PM141 bandsaw USA Made - Super expensive, but the top 14" bandsaw back then. Perfect
3) PM60 Jointer, Assembled in the USA of components from Taiwan and USA according to the tag. Perfect from day one until I sold it in 2007
4) PM26 shaper, USA made - perfect and still my shaper today.
5) PM100 planer, USA made, - very bad on delivery. Everything out of alignment, and a chip breaker that was mis-machined. They sent me two replacement chip breakers and they were mis-machined in the identical way. The PM guys in TN were great, but the local dealer was completely incompetent. In the end remachined the chip breaker, and the pressure bar. I should have sent it back, but I was much younger, didn't know about old iron, and I was lurned by having all PM gold machines in the shop.

I was 4 of 5 perfect, but the bad was was pretty bad. Funny thing, I ordered the perfect 4 over the phone (pre internet ) and the bad planer was purchased locally. That was the one that would have been easy to return.

[Chip Lindley]

Mike, you are Really lucky the too-large sheave did not chew up your motor shaft!! Wayy Lucky!!

[Mike Williams]

Mike, you are Really lucky the too-large sheave did not chew up your motor shaft!! Wayy Lucky!!

I know. The power transmission guy and I looked at the motor shaft and measured it in a number of places. It was still round! He couldn't explain the 29/32" bore on the sheave. He said that was definitely not a standard size.

[George Daiber]

Randy,
I have the same issue with blade moving when tilting. Solutions?