which planer?

[Rob Holcomb]

I bought the Grizzly G0453 15" planer about 6 months ago. It works very well and I've had no problems with it at all but I'm not a big fan of the chute where the chips leave the machine and enter my dust collection unit. The chute comes straight out rather than going off on an angle and I'm constantly fighting to keep the 4" hose out of the way of the boards that are passing through the planer. Especially the narrow pieces. They tend to catch on the ribs of the hose and either the board moves off to an angle which causes some snipe or the hose falls off the chute.

[guy knight]

Cary, yes I am sure I could not believe it myself. I talked to the sales department and that price includes tail gate delivery so you can get a PM15HH for $1870 .00 or the Grizzly G0453Z for $1,678.00 tail gate delivery on both with the Spiral-Cutter head. The Grizzly has their own head and the Pm has the Byrd. “That’s only a difference of $192.00 dollars?”

For those’s that have one or the other how’s the / or is there any snipe problems with your machines?

Richard

dont forget the 5 year warranty and better resale if you ever want to upgrade better motor too

[Kieran Kammerer]

Cary, yes I am sure I could not believe it myself. I talked to the sales department and that price includes tail gate delivery so you can get a PM15HH for $1870 .00 or the Grizzly G0453Z for $1,678.00 tail gate delivery on both with the Spiral-Cutter head. The Grizzly has their own head and the Pm has the Byrd. “That’s only a difference of $192.00 dollars?”

For those’s that have one or the other how’s the / or is there any snipe problems with your machines?

Richard

I am not sure you were given correct info. The 15 S is listed as having a spiral cutting head with three blades which I think is a completely different arrangement than the Byrd cutting head with numerous cutters listed on the 15HH model. In the flyer, the 15HH is much more expensive than the 15S model (same on every other seller's site). When I initially started to look at these planers, I was very confused about the terminology. I would love to get some other people's input/read on the difference in the 15S and the 15HH.

[David DeCristoforo]

The 15s uses a continuous knife, not the segmented knives like the Byrd head. Look at the owner's manual for the 15s here:

http://www.cpopowermatic.com/documen...ic/1791210.pdf

and take a look at the replacement knives here:

http://woodworker.com/fullpres.asp?P...6&LARGEVIEW=ON

Personally, I would prefer the continuos cutter. I used to work on a machine that had one of the "original" Neuman helical heads and I think the continuous knife produces a superior surface. Replacements are around a hundred dollars a set so the segmented cutters may be cheaper if you factor in four cutting edges per chip.

[Kieran Kammerer]

Thanks David. Makes sense. I still think despite what was said earlier, the sale prices for the two diffrent Powermatic planers is not he same. Kieran